August 2020

August 4 - Early morning walk with Maddie, the turkeys at the same house I usually  see them at.  They're getting considerably bigger.

Walking around Ward's Pond, in the gully north of Jamaica Pond, saw a lone juvenile wood duck on the tiny, sandy, not really a beach, area by the path to the parking lot.

August 5 - Back at Ward's Pond to look for the wood duck, saw an adult female with 3 juveniles, all on the same sandy bank again, busily preening themselves the entire time I watched them, and still at it after I walked around the pond (admittedly, only a 10 minute walk... it's a small pond).  Lovely to see them. Also a nuthatch on a nearby tree trunk.

Big storm here yesterday, around dinner time. Huge tree limb came down near where the wood ducks were.

        

Walking in the Arboretum after dinner, flowers on the banks of the Bussey Brook.

         

And another huge tree down, not just a limb, but the trunk entirely broken off a third of the way up.

            

August 6 - Morning walk, saw the first ripening tomatoes of the season on Brewer St.

    

Biking home later on this morning, coming up the hill close towards the pond, by Perkins St., saw a turkey, its iridescent feathers gleaming in the sun, crossing the road in front of me, just starting to jog to avoid the cars.  Jogging is not becoming to turkeys.  Then, as I stopped at the red light at Perkins, saw another turkey fly out from high up in a tree by the pond, across the street and land in another tree.  They're not great flyers.  In fact, I'm always a little surprised that they can fly at all.  They seem, shall we say, a little bottom heavy.  I'm realizing that they don't actually look like they're meant to move at any pace faster than a slow walk at all - jogging looks weird, flying is iffy....

Walking Maddie in the afternoon, saw a perfectly formed nest on the ground on Eliot St. Don't think I could make anything quite so exact with my hands, let alone with my mouth.

    

August 7 Walking Maddie by the Eliot School, noticed a neighbor's garden, looking lovely.  And at the end of August, this garden won the Mayor's city-wide garden award, for medium sized gardens.

        

Later on in the morning, noticed my neighbor's cat staking out the water basin, hoping to catch a bird (so far, never happened).  But I did see a robin take off, nearly vertically, a little later on.   After which the cat gave up and left.

        

August 8 - Walking with Maddie on Brewer St early this morning, just ahead of us, a squirrel ran up a tree and then stopped to check us out. It stayed there long enough for me to get the phone out and take a photo.

    

Went for a 27 mile bike ride, from the house to the Longfellow Bridge and then along the Charles River to Watertown, alternating sides of the river to avoid bumpy bits of the bike path.  At the BU bridge, there is a little boardwalk thing that juts out over the water and you can see how (artificially) wide the river is, from the dam further upstream, by the Museum of Science.  In Waterown, in the middle photo, it's narrowed way down.  And in the bottom photo, at Newton, a little further along, it's maybe 25 feet across and only a foot or so deep - I could certainly easily walk across it.

 

Saw a guy with binoculars walking along the path and stopped to ask him if he'd seen any good birds.  He hadn't but he had seen an amazing turtle sighting and had a photo: a big snapping turtle with a much, much smaller turtle on its neck - it must have clambered up the big turtle's shell.   Snapping turtles don't care for their young once they've laid the eggs, so this must have been just some random turtle getting a free ride. Pretty amazing!

August 9 - The hibiscus in my front garden is blooming, large deep red flowers;  people walking by have been stopping to take it all in.

August 11 - Beautiful sunrise at the pond this morning - golden glow over the trees, still and quiet, Canada Geese getting ready for their day.

On our evening walk, coming home on Dunster, saw a cedar bush covered in light blue berries.

August 12. We've been having hot, hot weather for days on end, little rain, everything parched.  On our morning walk, saw a rabbit, flat out on its side, just resting in the heat on a dried out, browned lawn.

At the Arboretum, the two small ponds along the main drive are down to mud.  The Arb is watering the trees, with industrial strength sprinklers, on stands 10 feet tall, fed by hoses the size that fire departments use.  

 

But, near the marsh at the front entrance, masses of yellow flowers. And the small creek still flowing, albeit with much less water than usual.

August 14 - Walking at the Arboretum I saw a Japanese Pagoda tree covered in large, pale yellow blossom, petals falling onto the roadway beneath, covering it in a carpet of flowers.

Last year, several diseased beeches in a small grove near the South Street entrance to the Arb were taken down, leaving regular walkers bereft.  But today, in their place, was a field of brilliant yellow flowers, many with bees busily probing their innards.  

August 15 - On my morning bike ride, near the Muddy River, a house with a donkey pinata on the lookout in the front hedge. It's been there for several days, and I kept thinking that some kids would take it and break it open. But so far, it's still there.

August 16 - someone left a wooden rocking chair with a thick cushion next to the pond.  Great spot to sit and look out, taking in the view.

August 17 - Beautiful, clear, sunny, cooler day, after a couple of weeks of temperatures in the 90s - perfect. Walking in the Arboretum in the afternoon, Maddie snuffling, me just taking it all in.  On the drumlin path through the woods, heard a woodpecker calling, then spotted it on a nearby branch - hairy woodpecker, maybe a juvenile, with less distinct black and white patterning on its back. Then a second  hairy woodpecker, definitely an adult, landed near it, with more calling between them, until the second one flew off to a nearby tree. 

 

Later on, walking past a tree labeled "Dupont's Chestnut" I wondered if it was named for the chemical du Pont family.  Michael Dosmann, the Keeper of the Living Collections at the Arboretum, tells me that this tree came from Winterthur, one of the du Pont family estates in Delaware, developed by Henry F. du Pont.  The spring issue of Arnoldia has an article on him and his role in making Winterthur into a wonderful garden, now public.  Another du Pont with a bent for gardens was Pierre S. du Pont, who developed a small arboretum outside of Philadelphia into the beloved Longwood Gardens, now with over 1000 acres of beautifully tended gardens, also open to the public.

 

August 18 - Saw a great blue heron fishing in the Muddy River on my bike ride. 

This afternoon, looking out of the kitchen window at the back garden, saw a squirrel hanging upside down on one of the "wooly pocket" planters attached to the side of the garage, hanging on by what appeared to be the long toes of one hind foot. Stayed that way for a couple of minutes.  Not sure exactly what it was investigating.  And on our evening walk, noticed a turkey feather on the sidewalk, next door to the house.  I haven't seen the turkey mom and her two juveniles for a few days, but I'm guessing that the feather is from one of them.

 

 

August 19 - Saw 5 juvenile wood ducks (I think) on the Muddy River on my morning bike ride.  Still seeing chimney swifts on my early morning walks - over the pond, around the Jamaicaway, sometimes over the parking lot behind Centre St.  (Why is it that Americans spell center with "er" but Centre St with "re", as in the UK and Canada?)

August 21 - Early this morning, saw 2 muskrats swimming one behind the other, by the boat dock at the pond, just about 10 feet away from where I was standing.   I could see their heads poking above the water and their entire backs and tails just below the water level.  In the springtime I sometimes see a single muskrat swimming along the shoreline, just off the stone embankment.   But I've never seen two before. So that was fun.  Then on Eliot Street, a goldfinch flew across the street just in front of us, landing on a fence.  

This afternoon I went for a drive and on the way back, stopped at a red light, I saw a group of sparrows hopping about in the dirt of a small flowerbed in the little median at the intersection.  One sparrow was having a dirt bath, in a little cup-shaped depression it had made for itself and a couple of others were trying to muscle their way in to the same depression.  Others started making their own depressions, flinging themselves into the dirt.  And then the light turned green and I had to move on.

In the evening, watering the back garden, lots of chimney swifts flying overhead.  I often see 4 or 5, but tonight there were more like 15 or so, zipping around, catching insects.

 

August 22 - This morning, a bit startled to see the uppermost leaves on a tree starting to turn to fall colors.  Not entirely sure if it's the change to shorter days or just the incredibly dry few weeks we've had.  Further along the same road, I saw a ruby-throated hummingbird flitting around a bush on Brewer St.  

 

 

Later on in the morning, I went out for a longer bike ride, starting in Lincoln and heading south through Weston towards Wellesley (West of Boston there are lots of W suburbs: Watertown, Waltham, Wellesley, Weston, Wayland)  Pedaling along, then out of the corner of my eye saw the bright waxy yellow tips of the tail of a cedar waxwing.   Cool.

 

August 23 - Went for a bike ride from Concord, up to Carlisle and back.  At the little cafe/grocery store with rockers on the porch, saw a huge sunflower, a few feet taller than me.   

 

August 24.  Went out with Maddie a little earlier this morning, around 5:30.   When we got to the boat house and dock, there were 2 muskrats, hopping on and off a fallen branch floating by the dock, swimming around.   Fun to see them.

 

 

August 27 Beautiful still morning at the pond, sun just hitting the tops of the trees across the pond.  Saw a muskrat swimming away from the dock, dive and come up with something black in its mouth, and then swim back to the dock again. 

On my bike ride, saw a great blue heron fishing in the Muddy River.  Walking Maddie in the afternoon, a couple of nuthatches flying from one oak tree, landing on the trunk, pecking a bit, then flying on to the next one, further along the sidewalk.

 

August 28 Early morning, saw a great blue heron standing right by the dock, about 10 feet from me, fishing, slowly stepping forward.  

 

 

In the afternoon, I drove out to Mass Audubon's Broadmoor sanctuary in South Natick, about 15 miles west of JP.  Lovely marsh there and beyond, trails through the woods to the Charles River. 

 

 Lots of turtles sunning themselves on downed logs in the marsh. Little kids gathered with their parents, watching them. Saw a hairy woodpecker on a dead tree trunk, not pecking at the tree, but instead thrashing bundles of seeds hanging from a vine growing up the tree.  Just before leaving, I stopped to look at the bluebird nesting boxes in the meadow by the parking lot. I thought the birds would have finished nesting and raising their young and would be gone. But there were maybe a dozen or so, Eastern bluebirds, flying about, catching insects and perching on the poles holding the boxes.

August 29 Grey morning. Maddie decided to walk along the stony shore of the pond, away from the boathouse, so that she could snuffle among the stones and put her paws (just barely) in the water.  She doesn't really like to be in the water - strange for a cross between two water dogs, a Labrador and Poodle.  And I was glad she took me a different route: looking up, I spotted an osprey flying over the water, coming into land on a dead branch at the top of a tree, missing on the first attempt (!), then coming back to land.