May 2020
May 2 – Went for an early morning bike ride to the BU bridge and back. Near the Longwood T station saw a group of 3 male turkeys displaying with their tails fanned out, Thanksgiving-style.
Stopped at Hall’s Pond in Brookline and took a video just to record the lovely dawn chorus of birdsong. It’s amazing to hear this right in the city – you can see the 5 or 6 story apartment buildings on Beacon Street poking up above the trees behind the pond.
May 4 – Walking in the Arboretum in the early morning, saw many more trilliums out along the oak path. On the way back to the entrance to the Arb I saw the first few early lilacs starting to bloom. The Arboretum has a wonderful collection of lilacs, with nearly 400 plants spreading over a hillside to create a mass of color in mid-May.
May 5 – As I walked up to a neighbors’ house to return some plastic containers, a robin flew out of the wreath on the front door. When I looked more closely, I saw that it had a nest at the top of the wreath and was not happy about me coming up to the door. I've seen nests there in previous years but had forgotten about it.
May 7 – Walking Maddie this morning, there was a chill in the air producing a faint mist above the water on the pond.
Walking through the neighborhood, a holly bush in bloom. I always think of holly with the red berries. But to have berries, you first need flowers.
After breakfast, went for a bike ride, up to the BU Bridge that goes into Cambridge. Along the Muddy River saw a Canada Goose sheltering goslings under its wing (except for one over-ambitious one, just in front of her wing).
On the way home, biking along Francis Parkman Drive by Jamaica Pond, saw an albino squirrel on the grass headed towards the woods. I got a photo at a distance; a neighbour, Myriam Diaz, took this one a few days later.
And a small flock of chimney swifts zig-zagging over the pond, catching insects.
At home, noticing the hosta plants along the driveway, at different stages of unfurling the leaves. Love the way they are so tightly wound up and then how they unfold as they grow longer. Looks like there could be a biomechanics project in this...
May 8 – Walked around Leverett Pond around 8am this morning. Mallard duck with 6 tiny ducklings, couldn’t be more than a few days old, swimming near the shore, very cute. Black crowned night heron standing on a low tree branch on one of the islands. Tree swallows and a single barn swallow darting across the pond – the first I’ve seen this season. Seeing the first tree swallows always says now it’s really spring to me.
May 13 – Around 7:30 this morning, I walked in the Arboretum, past the lilac collection, now out in all its glory. Lilac Sunday, held annually on Mother’s Day, attracts hundreds of visitors to the Arboretum; the Arb has been celebrating Lilac Sunday since 1908. But this year, the celebrations were cancelled, for fear the crowds would get too big to allow proper social distancing. Across from the lilacs, a honeysuckle bush starting to flower. On the way back to the main gate, saw a couple of Baltimore orioles fly past and a pair of goldfinches, landing on the grassy edge of the path, picking away at seeds.
Over the last few days, I’ve seen the robin sitting on the nest on top of the wreath on the front door of my neighbors’ house each time I walk past. A few days ago, I noticed that the robins in my back garden had stopped working on their nest. I thought that perhaps they had moved on to incubating eggs. But this past weekend, I noticed that the nest was on the ground at the base of the bush, a jumble of dried straw and grassy stems. I have to say that when I took the photo of it at the end of April, it did look a bit of a mess, even as they were working on it. I wonder if they are immature and haven’t quite figured out the intricacies of nest-building.
May 15 – Standing in the kitchen, looking out the back window, I saw two crows up on the roof of the house behind mine. One, standing on top of the flat chimney plate, seemed to be pecking at something on the plate while the other watched from the roof ridge. Small bits flew off as the first one pecked; I thought perhaps it was bits of paper from some piece of garbage the crow had taken up to its perch. But once I got the binoculars out, I could see that they weren’t bits of garbage, they were tufts of feathers. And as I looked more closely, I could see the crow ripping bits of meat off a dead bird. At one point, as the crow repositioned, I could see the dead bird’s tail hanging over the edge of the chimney plate. Meanwhile, 3 blue jays were watching all of this from a tree in another neighbor’s yard. As the crow got to the end of its meal, the jays flew in closer, taking up positions just above the chimney on another tree, and began making a ruckus. The crow pulled off one last large bit of meat then flew away over my house and into the distance.
Coming home from our Friday afternoon walk, Maddie noticed one of Martin and Katherine’s cats in their front yard, beneath the flowering dogwood. The cat stood its ground even though Maddie was straining at the leash to chase after it.
May 16 – saw a great blue heron flying low over the pond on our early morning walk, looking prehistoric, like the dinosaur relative that it is. Earlier on in the week, I saw another one flying low just over the tree tops, against the golden morning light.
On the way home from my morning bike ride, going by the woods along Parkman Drive by the pond, saw two turkeys, a male and a female, standing on top of a couple of large tree stumps, looking like statues on pedestals.
May 17 – Lots of baby bunnies out this morning, feeding on lawns around the neighbourhood.
May 18 – Saw an osprey over Jamaica Pond early this morning while walking Maddie. It flew around the edge of the pond and then headed along Perkins Street below the tree tops.
A little later on I did a little birding in the Arboretum – yellow warbler singing its heart out from the tip of a tree branch, black-throated green warbler doing the same (that’s the only way that I can find them, if they are singing and at the edge of the tree), American goldfinch, tufted titmouse, and a white breasted nuthatch. Bluebells out among the dawn redwoods by the main gate of the Arb. Redbud trees blossoming – I always marvel at the way the flowers appear to pop out of the bark itself. The lilacs still in full flower. And, walking along the hillside that they’re on, their scent was just wonderful. I’m still waiting for my iPhone to be able to capture the scent along with the flowers, though.
May 20 – The Arboretum started up their Tree Mobs again, now on zoom. Today, Karla Noboa, a naturalist with River Network, was in the meadow by Bussey Brook, talking about nesting tree swallows. After an introduction she opened up one of their nesting boxes to reveal the nest with a few white eggs (hard to tell how many on the zoom video). She then contrasted tree swallow nests and black-capped chickadee nests, and opened a nearby chickadee nest, again with eggs, white with small reddish spots. The Arb is planning on posting the video of her talk on its website, but it's not yet available. You might want to check in a couple of weeks.
On our evening walk around the block, at the rabbit guys’ house, saw three baby robins in the nest above the wreath on their front door. Most noticeable were their beaks pointing straight up, yellow/orange mouths wide open, waiting for a parent to return with food.
Steve, one of the rabbit guys, who in his professional, non-rabbit raising life, is a high-powered oncologist at the Dana Farber, has been working on treatments for the coronavirus. A drug that his research group helped to develop for a type of lymphoma, may be effective in reducing inflammation in the lungs, reducing the need for patients to go on ventilators. Steve’s partner, Chris, said that he was on the CBS News tonight. Very exciting!
And my neighbor, Sue, sent this photo of falcons (I assume peregrines) in a nest on the George Washington Bridge in NYC – her brother works for the city and one of his colleagues took the photo.
May 21 – On my early morning walk with Maddie, heard, and then saw, a few chimney swifts darting around above a parking lot behind Centre St. in JP.
After breakfast, at the Arboretum, walking among the conifers, I noticed one large conifer densely covered in small cones. Getting closer, I saw masses of pink cones, barely larger than the needles. Oriental spruce, native to Asia Minor. Nearby, a Norway Spruce, the tips of the branches dotted with startlingly light, almost fluorescent green new growth, contrasting with the darker green of the older needles.
Later in the morning, drove to Wellesley College, for a walk around Lake Waban. But the entire campus was closed – buildings, parking lots and, sadly, the path around the Lake (really a pond). So I drove on along Rt 16 to Natick, and took a turn down a back road where Jeannie and I used to bike. Stopped at a small pond and stream that is part of Mass Audubon’s Broadmoor Sanctuary, also closed, just to watch the tree swallows zipping over the water (more nest boxes in the meadow by the pond). On the way home, stopped in Natick, at a small park overlooking the Charles River – tranquil.
May 22 – I’ve been working on Jeannie’s garden over the last few weeks. I’m thinking I’ll be spending lots of time at home over the summer and will want to sit out in the back yard. Been planting herbs, spinach, peas and zucchini in the raised beds. I took a video so that you can see how it looks.
May 24 – Walking Maddie around the neighborhood this afternoon, I saw a border full of tall, nearly perfectly spherical, purple allium flowers in front of the Dane house on Dane Street. The Dane family lived there for over 150 years. The house was a stop on the Underground Railroad and had all sorts of tucked away hiding places. When the last of the Danes died about 10 years ago, another family bought it and did major renovations, so I don’t know if the hiding places are still there or if they were removed during the renovations.
May 25 – Early morning walk at the Arboretum, the air cool and misty. Birds: Baltimore oriole on the ground, picking at something; a couple of northern flickers flying; a tree swallow darting around a marshy area, catching insects, then going into a nesting box; a robin landing on its nest, tucked into the V of a low branch, to feed a baby with its neck stretched out as high as it could go, its head seemingly all beak, open wide, squeaking to be fed; red-bellied woodpecker, perched on a tree trunk, pecking away, squawking on and off. Passed a bush with dozens of spider webs illuminated by the mist hanging on each silky thread. Went back to the Oriental Spruce, that had the tiny red cones forming 4 days ago; now the pink had turned duller and there were masses of light green cones forming, some with the tips turning brown.
And, on the albino squirrel by the pond, I got an email that someone else has spotted 3 young, along with the Mom.
May 29 – Every morning, walking Maddie, I go through a drab parking lot behind a bank on Centre St, listening to the twittering of chimney swifts. Looking up, I usually see 6 to 10 of them darting about, chasing after insects. I love that even in the most humdrum places, there are wonderful birds to see. Jeannie and I once saw thousands of chimney swifts dive into a chimney in Wolfville NS to roost for the night, all in a matter of about a minute – it is a fantastic sight. The best video I could find of something similar is thousands of Vaux’s swifts going down a chimney in Portland, Oregon – after flying in a swirling cloud (a murmuration), they begin to pour into the chimney just after the 1 minute point in the video.
The baby robins in the nest on the rabbit guys front door have already grown pretty much out of the nest. In the photo there are two perched on top of the nest, and the beak of a third is just visible between them.
May 30 – The wreath was gone from the rabbit guys front door this morning. Perhaps the babies fledged yesterday.
May 31 - Ran into Chris, one of the rabbit guys this morning. The baby robins did fledge, on Friday May 29.
Stopped at Hall’s Pond in Brookline and took a video just to record the lovely dawn chorus of birdsong. It’s amazing to hear this right in the city – you can see the 5 or 6 story apartment buildings on Beacon Street poking up above the trees behind the pond.
May 4 – Walking in the Arboretum in the early morning, saw many more trilliums out along the oak path. On the way back to the entrance to the Arb I saw the first few early lilacs starting to bloom. The Arboretum has a wonderful collection of lilacs, with nearly 400 plants spreading over a hillside to create a mass of color in mid-May.
May 5 – As I walked up to a neighbors’ house to return some plastic containers, a robin flew out of the wreath on the front door. When I looked more closely, I saw that it had a nest at the top of the wreath and was not happy about me coming up to the door. I've seen nests there in previous years but had forgotten about it.
May 7 – Walking Maddie this morning, there was a chill in the air producing a faint mist above the water on the pond.
After breakfast, went for a bike ride, up to the BU Bridge that goes into Cambridge. Along the Muddy River saw a Canada Goose sheltering goslings under its wing (except for one over-ambitious one, just in front of her wing).
On the way home, biking along Francis Parkman Drive by Jamaica Pond, saw an albino squirrel on the grass headed towards the woods. I got a photo at a distance; a neighbour, Myriam Diaz, took this one a few days later.
Photo: Myriam Diaz
And a small flock of chimney swifts zig-zagging over the pond, catching insects.
At home, noticing the hosta plants along the driveway, at different stages of unfurling the leaves. Love the way they are so tightly wound up and then how they unfold as they grow longer. Looks like there could be a biomechanics project in this...
May 8 – Walked around Leverett Pond around 8am this morning. Mallard duck with 6 tiny ducklings, couldn’t be more than a few days old, swimming near the shore, very cute. Black crowned night heron standing on a low tree branch on one of the islands. Tree swallows and a single barn swallow darting across the pond – the first I’ve seen this season. Seeing the first tree swallows always says now it’s really spring to me.
May 13 – Around 7:30 this morning, I walked in the Arboretum, past the lilac collection, now out in all its glory. Lilac Sunday, held annually on Mother’s Day, attracts hundreds of visitors to the Arboretum; the Arb has been celebrating Lilac Sunday since 1908. But this year, the celebrations were cancelled, for fear the crowds would get too big to allow proper social distancing. Across from the lilacs, a honeysuckle bush starting to flower. On the way back to the main gate, saw a couple of Baltimore orioles fly past and a pair of goldfinches, landing on the grassy edge of the path, picking away at seeds.
Over the last few days, I’ve seen the robin sitting on the nest on top of the wreath on the front door of my neighbors’ house each time I walk past. A few days ago, I noticed that the robins in my back garden had stopped working on their nest. I thought that perhaps they had moved on to incubating eggs. But this past weekend, I noticed that the nest was on the ground at the base of the bush, a jumble of dried straw and grassy stems. I have to say that when I took the photo of it at the end of April, it did look a bit of a mess, even as they were working on it. I wonder if they are immature and haven’t quite figured out the intricacies of nest-building.
May 15 – Standing in the kitchen, looking out the back window, I saw two crows up on the roof of the house behind mine. One, standing on top of the flat chimney plate, seemed to be pecking at something on the plate while the other watched from the roof ridge. Small bits flew off as the first one pecked; I thought perhaps it was bits of paper from some piece of garbage the crow had taken up to its perch. But once I got the binoculars out, I could see that they weren’t bits of garbage, they were tufts of feathers. And as I looked more closely, I could see the crow ripping bits of meat off a dead bird. At one point, as the crow repositioned, I could see the dead bird’s tail hanging over the edge of the chimney plate. Meanwhile, 3 blue jays were watching all of this from a tree in another neighbor’s yard. As the crow got to the end of its meal, the jays flew in closer, taking up positions just above the chimney on another tree, and began making a ruckus. The crow pulled off one last large bit of meat then flew away over my house and into the distance.
Coming home from our Friday afternoon walk, Maddie noticed one of Martin and Katherine’s cats in their front yard, beneath the flowering dogwood. The cat stood its ground even though Maddie was straining at the leash to chase after it.
May 16 – saw a great blue heron flying low over the pond on our early morning walk, looking prehistoric, like the dinosaur relative that it is. Earlier on in the week, I saw another one flying low just over the tree tops, against the golden morning light.
On the way home from my morning bike ride, going by the woods along Parkman Drive by the pond, saw two turkeys, a male and a female, standing on top of a couple of large tree stumps, looking like statues on pedestals.
May 17 – Lots of baby bunnies out this morning, feeding on lawns around the neighbourhood.
May 18 – Saw an osprey over Jamaica Pond early this morning while walking Maddie. It flew around the edge of the pond and then headed along Perkins Street below the tree tops.
A little later on I did a little birding in the Arboretum – yellow warbler singing its heart out from the tip of a tree branch, black-throated green warbler doing the same (that’s the only way that I can find them, if they are singing and at the edge of the tree), American goldfinch, tufted titmouse, and a white breasted nuthatch. Bluebells out among the dawn redwoods by the main gate of the Arb. Redbud trees blossoming – I always marvel at the way the flowers appear to pop out of the bark itself. The lilacs still in full flower. And, walking along the hillside that they’re on, their scent was just wonderful. I’m still waiting for my iPhone to be able to capture the scent along with the flowers, though.
May 20 – The Arboretum started up their Tree Mobs again, now on zoom. Today, Karla Noboa, a naturalist with River Network, was in the meadow by Bussey Brook, talking about nesting tree swallows. After an introduction she opened up one of their nesting boxes to reveal the nest with a few white eggs (hard to tell how many on the zoom video). She then contrasted tree swallow nests and black-capped chickadee nests, and opened a nearby chickadee nest, again with eggs, white with small reddish spots. The Arb is planning on posting the video of her talk on its website, but it's not yet available. You might want to check in a couple of weeks.
On our evening walk around the block, at the rabbit guys’ house, saw three baby robins in the nest above the wreath on their front door. Most noticeable were their beaks pointing straight up, yellow/orange mouths wide open, waiting for a parent to return with food.
Steve, one of the rabbit guys, who in his professional, non-rabbit raising life, is a high-powered oncologist at the Dana Farber, has been working on treatments for the coronavirus. A drug that his research group helped to develop for a type of lymphoma, may be effective in reducing inflammation in the lungs, reducing the need for patients to go on ventilators. Steve’s partner, Chris, said that he was on the CBS News tonight. Very exciting!
And my neighbor, Sue, sent this photo of falcons (I assume peregrines) in a nest on the George Washington Bridge in NYC – her brother works for the city and one of his colleagues took the photo.
May 21 – On my early morning walk with Maddie, heard, and then saw, a few chimney swifts darting around above a parking lot behind Centre St. in JP.
After breakfast, at the Arboretum, walking among the conifers, I noticed one large conifer densely covered in small cones. Getting closer, I saw masses of pink cones, barely larger than the needles. Oriental spruce, native to Asia Minor. Nearby, a Norway Spruce, the tips of the branches dotted with startlingly light, almost fluorescent green new growth, contrasting with the darker green of the older needles.
Oriental Spruce
Norway Spruce
May 22 – I’ve been working on Jeannie’s garden over the last few weeks. I’m thinking I’ll be spending lots of time at home over the summer and will want to sit out in the back yard. Been planting herbs, spinach, peas and zucchini in the raised beds. I took a video so that you can see how it looks.
May 24 – Walking Maddie around the neighborhood this afternoon, I saw a border full of tall, nearly perfectly spherical, purple allium flowers in front of the Dane house on Dane Street. The Dane family lived there for over 150 years. The house was a stop on the Underground Railroad and had all sorts of tucked away hiding places. When the last of the Danes died about 10 years ago, another family bought it and did major renovations, so I don’t know if the hiding places are still there or if they were removed during the renovations.
May 25 – Early morning walk at the Arboretum, the air cool and misty. Birds: Baltimore oriole on the ground, picking at something; a couple of northern flickers flying; a tree swallow darting around a marshy area, catching insects, then going into a nesting box; a robin landing on its nest, tucked into the V of a low branch, to feed a baby with its neck stretched out as high as it could go, its head seemingly all beak, open wide, squeaking to be fed; red-bellied woodpecker, perched on a tree trunk, pecking away, squawking on and off. Passed a bush with dozens of spider webs illuminated by the mist hanging on each silky thread. Went back to the Oriental Spruce, that had the tiny red cones forming 4 days ago; now the pink had turned duller and there were masses of light green cones forming, some with the tips turning brown.
Drumlin hill path
Spider webs in the mist
Oriental Spruce
And, on the albino squirrel by the pond, I got an email that someone else has spotted 3 young, along with the Mom.
May 29 – Every morning, walking Maddie, I go through a drab parking lot behind a bank on Centre St, listening to the twittering of chimney swifts. Looking up, I usually see 6 to 10 of them darting about, chasing after insects. I love that even in the most humdrum places, there are wonderful birds to see. Jeannie and I once saw thousands of chimney swifts dive into a chimney in Wolfville NS to roost for the night, all in a matter of about a minute – it is a fantastic sight. The best video I could find of something similar is thousands of Vaux’s swifts going down a chimney in Portland, Oregon – after flying in a swirling cloud (a murmuration), they begin to pour into the chimney just after the 1 minute point in the video.
The baby robins in the nest on the rabbit guys front door have already grown pretty much out of the nest. In the photo there are two perched on top of the nest, and the beak of a third is just visible between them.
May 30 – The wreath was gone from the rabbit guys front door this morning. Perhaps the babies fledged yesterday.
May 31 - Ran into Chris, one of the rabbit guys this morning. The baby robins did fledge, on Friday May 29.
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