July 2020

July 2 - Misty morning, the mist illuminating a spider web on top of a hedge.  And the mist making the pond look like it could be in Maine, rather than in the city.  After the pandemic lockdown, the city parks department is finally getting the boats ready to rent again.

But just a couple of hours later, the mist has burned off and it's a beautiful, clear, sunny day.  Took some photos of the Muddy River for the out of towners to see where I bike in the mornings.

July 3 - Went to Allandale Farm to pick up a few more plants for the garden.  Whenever I go there, I like to visit with Willard and Curtis, the two black Highland cattle the farm keeps.  Love their shaggy coats and long, curling horns.  In Northumberland, where my parents are from, you sometimes see herds of the more common red Highland cattle; there they are called kyloe (pronounced kai-lee).  Wikipedia says that the black ones are smaller than the reddish, or dun, colored ones, which can weigh up to 1800 pounds (800 kg).  It also says that they "descend from the Hamitic Longhorn, which were brought to Britain by Neolithic farmers in the second millenium BC."

This evening, walking Maddie, saw a small bird nest on the ground. I'm always curious about how a nest falls out of a tree intact.

July 4 - Brushing my teeth in the morning, saw a pair of orioles fly into the tree in my next door neighbors' back yard, flit among the branches for a minute or so and then fly off again.

July 5 -  The turkey with its two chicks seems to be living on our street.  I see it nearly every day, as do my neighbors.  Sue reported to me that last night they were roosting on a tree branch in the back of her neighbors' house.  Martin, next door to me, and David, up the street, have also seen them multiple times.

July 9 - Went all the way to the Longfellow Bridge across the Charles River on my morning bike ride. I love the way that, right before the bridge, the roadway and bike path curve out over the river, so that you feel you're on the water, with a view of Beacon Hill and Back Bay.

On the way back to JP, I took a small detour to Audubon Circle, at the corner of Beacon Street and Park Drive, to take some photos of the nearly dozen black metal bird silhouettes attached to the street lamps.  I loved the bird silhouettes for years before learning why the circle is named for Audubon and why the bird sculptures are there:  it is a few blocks from the home of Minna Hall, one of the founding mothers of Mass. Audubon (founded 1896) and a leader in the early conservation movement.  Audubon Circle was originally designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in 1887, although it has undergone modifications since then.  The bird silhouettes were added in 2005.

In the evening, in the Arboretum, I saw a woman spelling out Black Lives Matter on the roadway using fallen magnolia blossoms.  Unexpected and wonderful.

July 10 - Biked to MIT in the morning (although I didn't go inside) and saw a black squirrel in the main courtyard.  When I first moved to Boston, I never saw black squirrels, which struck me as odd, as they were the most common kind when I was growing up in Niagara Falls.  But in the past few years, I've occasionally seen one.

July 11 - Thought you might enjoy some photos of the garden.  Keeping the garden going this year has been a respite from all the commotion in the world.  And sitting out in the back garden with friends this spring and summer has been a solace.  Plus, a few days ago, I made pesto from the basil in the garden.

July 12 - Biked to Watertown this morning and took this photo from a bridge over the Charles River.  I love that the river looks so rural so close to the city.

And on the way home, going along the Muddy River, saw another albino squirrel. The Adirondack Ecological Center at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry website about squirrels says that "albinos are more frequent than in many rodents".

July 13 - Some cool looking mushroomy fungus, with curled up edges, like the toes of a genie's shoes.

July 14 - several carp in the shallows by the bank of the Muddy River, their dorsal fins sticking up out of the water.  And you can see why it's called the Muddy River.  The US Army Corps of Engineers is about to start a restoration of the Muddy River, dredging, removing phragmites and planting wetland plants.

July 15 - Walking through the woods between Leverett Pond and Willow Pond on a newly redone path, with compacted crushed gravel, saw a short-tailed shrew race across the path and nose into a small pile of leaves at the side of the path.  How is it that I had never seen these shrews before and now I've seen two in the space of a few months?

This afternoon, walking Maddie at the Arboretum, came upon bottlebrush buckeye bushes, a whole swath of them, with their white bottlebrush flowers standing erect.

July 17 - Saw a blue jay feather on the ground, probably from molting. Birds cannot make blue pigment for feathers or skin (like the blue footed boobies of the Galapagos).  Instead, blue is a structural color, arising from the interaction of light waves with small microscopic features within the feather.  In studies of blue feathers from the blue and yellow macaw, there are small pores, a few tenths of a micron in diameter, or 1/200 the diameter of a human hair, that give rise to the color blue. [Prum et al. (2009) J Royal Society Interface 6, S253-65].  Birds are amazing.

July 18 - As I was going to sleep, around 10pm, heard the whinnying of a screech owl in the night.  And again, around 1am, when Maddie got me up to take her out (she's been having GI issues).  You can hear a screech owl whinny here, the first recording:

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eastern_Screech-Owl/sounds

July 19 - In the bathroom this morning, saw a great blue heron fly low over the trees on the Arborway, a block from the house.

July 20 Drove to Cape Cod for a break for a few days. Staying in Wellfleet (halfway up the forearm of the Cape) at the Wellfleet Motel, right on Route 6, across from the Mass Audubon sanctuary.  After dinner, outside at a restaurant (which was very exciting, after all the staying at home!), I drove to the Great Island, a slender, 3 mile long spit of land running north-south, on the Massachusetts Bay side of the Cape, part of the National Seashore in Wellfleet.  At the northern end of the spit, a salt marsh, and, on the western side of the spit, facing the Bay, a spectacular, nearly deserted beach.

July 21 - Went over to the Mass Audubon sanctuary around 6:30 this morning.  The sanctuary is on the bay side of the Cape, overlooking Wellfleet harbor, with lush salt marshes and long sandy beaches. 

Saw a green heron walking on the mud at the edge of a pool, nearly empty at low tide, picking little fish out with its bill.  I never noticed what large feet green herons have until  I saw this one, with its bright yellow feet like a neon sign against the dark brown mud.  Also, a little yellowlegs (it seems to me that lots of those shorebirds have yellow legs, but for this one, that's its name).  Driving out of the parking lot, I noticed 12 white plastic "gourds" suspended from a roughly twelve foot pole, nesting boxes for purple martins.  There were several female and male purple martins perched on the contraption. A few were coming and going from the openings of the nests, feeding insects to the young, flying off to capture more insects.  When one took off, I could see two little martin heads poking out of the little horizontal opening of the nest, waiting for the next installment of insects.  Wonderful!  But I have to say, yet one more bird name that doesn't match the actual bird: the males are mostly blue, with a metallic sheen to them, not purple, and the females are buff and brown, with highlights of metallic blues - check out the photo at:

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Purple_Martin

Afterwards, went for a bike ride, along the rail trail to its northern end, 3 miles away. Then along small quiet roads atop the sand dunes alongside the Atlantic Ocean. Beautiful beaches, hardly anyone on them (engineered by the Town of Wellfleet, which only gives beach parking permits to town residents).  Biked into Wellfleet and then back to the motel.

Drove back to the village of Wellfleet to pick up some lunch. On the way there, saw a crow on the road, trying to pick up a not quite dead snake (maybe a garter snake - maybe 16" long, pretty skinny, greenish grey, yellowish line(s?) along its length), still wriggling on the pavement.  As I got closer, the crow dropped the snake and I didn't see if it managed to pick it up again as I passed by.

In Wellfleet, stopped by the harbor parking lot - there is an active osprey nest there.  Got a good look at one of the adults feeding a youngster.  Then, on my way out of the lot, noticed another osprey on top of a wooden pole in the harbor, preening itself. I wasn't sure what kind of bird it was at first, with its head buried in its armpit (wingpit?), digging away at some offending feather.

Had my lunch looking over an inlet, more salt marsh, watching a kayaker paddling. Then noticed a seal's head surfacing, swim along, then, as it dove, saw its entire body curve up and then downwards.  Last year, when I was here with Jeannie, we saw dozens of seals, in groups of 4 or 5, one group after another, swimming along the Atlantic side, about 50' offshore, like it was some sort of seal interstate highway.  There are so many seals hanging around the Cape now, that there are regular sightings of great white sharks (which feed on the seals).  There's even a shark app: Sharktivity.   Beachgoers are warned with hard to miss signs at the beachheads: as a recent NY Times article said, there's no guarantee they'll stay 6' away.

July 22 - Went to the Audubon sanctuary again this morning and watched the purple martins coming and going from their nests.  They made an awful lot of noise, chattering about, I guess talking to the chicks; you can hear the racket on the video:

And in the "Lorna can see animals anywhere department" I saw this cute little tiny frog in the portapotty at the sanctuary.

The bolt on the right looked to be 1/4" to me, so the frog was less than an inch I think.  It hopped along the wall of the portapotty; the front door had a good size gap to the outside all along its length, so I think it would eventually find its way out.

Drove up to Truro for lunch - had a sandwich sitting in the harbor parking lot.  More beautiful scenery - I had forgotten just how beautiful the Cape is.

July 25 - Back in JP, out for my early morning walk with Maddie, saw the female turkey with her 2 chicks.  They're getting bigger, not quite half adult size.  They seem to have figured out that Maddie and I aren't much of a threat - they walk away, but not in any hurry.

In the evening, out watering the garden, a flock of about 20 chimney swifts darting about overhead, chattering away.  I often see a few over the street by the house in the evening, but this was a noticeably larger group.

July 27 - On our morning walk, heard a bird squawking: a juvenile blue jay, standing on the stone wall along the Jamaicaway, at the end of my street.  Coming back again, after 25 minutes or so, it was still there, no longer squawking, maybe given up, or maybe just been fed by the adults.   On Eliot St., saw the turkey with the two chicks, walking along the sidewalk, headed towards the pond.

July 28 - Out on our morning walk, saw a male cardinal from the very tippy top of a tall spruce tree, in the sun, its red feathers shining bright against the blue sky.  Out on another walk, without Maddie, saw a group of 7 wood ducks at Leverett Pond. Not sure if they were all juveniles or if some were adult females (I was on the other side of the pond).  Very hot and muggy...

July 29 - Turkey feather on the sidewalk on Eliot St. on our morning walk.

July 30 - Morning walk with Maddie, pink hibiscus out in a garden on Pond St.  As I walked through the streets, a rainbow appeared, even though it hadn't rained here.

On my morning bike ride, saw 5 juvenile wood ducks on the Muddy River, but no adult with them.  Probably those remaining from the newly hatched brood of 9 ducklings I saw last month.   But I wonder what happened to the female...