Nature Notes

Friday, January 1, New Year's Day  The usual ducks at Jamaica Pond: hooded mergansers, a single male common merganser, ruddy ducks, ring-necked ducks, coots.  But no eared grebe.  I'd been wondering how much longer it would stay... Saturday, January 2  I'm no longer biking in the mornings - partly the cold, but I could no longer take the mess on my face from watering eyes, runny nose and condensation from my breath on the inside of my mask - yuk!  My new routine is to drive to Ward's Pond, just on the other side of Jamaica Pond, park and then walk around both Ward's Pond and, just a little further along, Leverett Pond.  Ward's Pond is in a little gully, with a water falling from Jamaica Pond down to Ward's Pond. We've had some heavy rainstorms recently, and this morning there was a steady drizzle, giving the little waterfall more flow. I love seeing the water turning as it falls from one rock to another, babbling along.  In the woods between the two po...

Tuesday, December 1 - On my morning bike ride, there was great commotion, with much flapping and fussing, among a flock of Canada geese grazing on the grass by the boathouse.  When I looked more closely, I saw the two neighbourhood turkeys in the midst of the geese, the larger one chasing the geese around.  On the stream by Brookline Ave, 2 male and one female  hooded merganser along with a single male wood duck .       There has been talk about dredging and restoring the Muddy River, practically since I arrived in Boston, over 35 years ago.  After many years of fits and starts, a few years ago, work finally began.  The US Army Corps of Engineers restored the area between Fenway Park and the Museum of Fine Arts, opening up a section of the river that had been hidden underground for years and landscaping the newly opened river banks. It's beautiful. And now, in a second phase of the work, they are restoring the portion of the river in th...