May 2022
May 1 Still, still morning at the pond.
May 2 Went to the Arboretum to check out the lilacs - they're coming on, not quite yet in full bloom.
One of my neighbours has a stunning azalea.
May 3 Ned Friedman, the Director of the Arboretum, is running a symposium today with speakers who have used the arboretum's collections in their research. He asked me to speak, as I had used the bamboo collection for a project on structural bamboo products - things like bamboo oriented strand board and laminated bamboo beams, similar to structural wood products. I brought along some samples:
The oriented strand board was made by our colleagues Greg Smith and his students at the University of British Columbia; the laminated bamboo was given to me by our colleague Mike Ramage at the University of Cambridge. The audience was especially tickled with the 3D printed bamboo parenchyma cells that my student, Patrick Dixon, made as part of his work modelling the mechanical properties of bamboo.
I was amused by the keynote talk by Susanne Renner, a German botanist, on senescence (when leaves fall off trees). After going over much data (spring weather, fall weather, sunlight hours, photosynthetic activity etc etc...), more on modelling, she finally makes a trip to Vermont to see the fall colors for herself. And.... her photo showed one lonely red tree in the midst of a green hillside. Mistimed it. Oh, well...
Leaving the symposium, outside of the Weld Hill research building, I saw this beautiful bush in blossom.
And in a neighboring bush, a downy woodpecker carefully picking off berries.
May 4 Stopped at the Arb on the way home from the groomer for Maddie to have a quick walk. A little ways inside the Center Street gate, the trilliums were blooming beneath the oaks. Mostly white, a couple of deep red blooms, too.
Trilliums are the symbol of the province of Ontario, where I grew up. According to this website
"The adoption of an official flower for Ontario grew out of a movement during the First World War to choose a national floral emblem appropriate for planting on the graves of Canadian servicemen overseas.
The white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum), also known as the wake-robin and the white lily, was officially adopted as Ontario’s floral emblem in 1937. It was recommended by a special committee of botanists to the Ontario Horticultural Association. In a British botanical work published in 1760 there is a reference to the trilliums as “the herb True Love of Canada.”"
The trillium appears on all sorts of Government of Ontario documents: the top one is the older (1964) version I grew up with, the bottom is a newer (2006) version, aka "three men in a hot tub".
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May 6 Drove to Tenafly NJ to visit with my friends Jaime and Howard. On the way, along Interstate s84 somewhere around Southbury, spotted a large bird perched in a tree by the road. Looking more closely I was stunned to see that it was a bald eagle. Regally overseeing the traffic (hoping for roadkill?).
May 7 Awoke to the sound of baby birds peeping, adults chirping, right by the bedroom window in Jaime and Howard's house; the Merlin app identified them as robins. Jaime and Howard said that for years there have been birds nesting in the window air conditioner.
We went for a drive along the Hudson, stopping at a few small parks with views of the Palisades behind us and the river, George Washington bridge and Manhattan before us. Amazing contrast between the green of the parks and the densely packed buildings of the city.
May 8 Went to the Storm King Art Center further up the Hudson this morning - outdoor sculptures set in the beautiful hills of the Hudson Valley. Loved everything about it - the playfulness of the sculptures; the walkways through open meadows and woods and along ponds and a stream; spring pushing forward, gradually greening the trees; the open views of the hills. Perfect spring day: sun coming through the clouds left over from yesterday's rain, mild temperature, a bit of breeze. It was wonderful.
Large scale tensegrity structure with the cables all in tension and the metal rods all in compression.
A section of Andy Goldsworthy's wall sculpture serpentining between the trees, going down to the pond and then re-emerging on the other side. Love this.
Nearby were these goslings, the first I'd seen this spring.
Also swallows darting through the air catching insects. A goldfinch flashing brilliant yellow.
More sculpture...
Windy on the drive home to Boston. Saw several hawks being buffetted around by the wind over the highway.
May 9 Honeysuckle coming into bloom at the pond, right by the Eliot Street traffic light. Song sparrow singing nearby. Spotted a magnolia warbler in the trees along the shore by the boathouse.
May 10 Hawk flying low over the bike path near Route 9, something dangling from its talons, half a dozen starlings chasing after it.
May 11 Baltimore oriole singing in a tree at the end of my street when I walked Maddie first thing in the morning.
May 12 Chimney swifts twittering over the house, the first I've seen this spring. At Drumlin Farm in Lincoln for an Audubon meeting this afternoon, saw a pair of tree swallows going in and out of a nesting box. In the photo, you can just barely see a swallow head poking out of the opening.
Walking Maddie, I stopped in at the Eliot School, as the door was wide open. Took photos of these two wood carvings, which I've seen many times before but never looked at closely. Love how fierce the bird looks. Just noticed that on the branch, to the left of the bird, it's signed: Shi nozaki 1909.
And the second one, of the corn stalk, is signed HTC 1893.
May 13 Spring is bursting everywhere. Took this photo of blossom in my neighbors' Mary and David's front yard.
After dinner, feeling a little tired out for another walk, I decided to check on the red-tailed hawk nest at the ball field, thinking the eggs should have hatched by now. When I get there, both adults are standing on the nest and then one takes off over the field (which has a little league ball game in progress), landing in one of the trees on the far side. As I get my telescope set up, I can see the adult on the nest tearing at something, maybe a squirrel, that perhaps was just dropped off. As I'm watching, I can see a little light grey fluffy baby hawk (which I've now learned is called an eyas), stand up, just to the left of the adult's legs. And then I see the adult ripping bits of flesh, feeding them to the eyas. And then I see a second eyas on the other side of the adult, but it doesn't seem to be getting fed as frequently. I'm not tired at all now, re-energized by seeing all this.
May 14 Biking through the Arb early this morning, birdsong everywhere. Took this movie, just for the sound.
In a 40 second recording at the same place, the Cornell Merlin bird song ID app says there were: Carolina wren, black-capped chickadee, white-throated sparrow, red-winged blackbird, American goldfinch, song sparrow and Baltimore oriole. In another spot, it identified: yellow warbler, Northern flicker, warbling vireo, chipping sparrow, Baltimore oriole, gray catbird, and house sparrow.
The lilacs peaking, stunning. I can smell their scent just riding by on my bicycle. Too bad the blog doesn't have a scent feature.
May 15 My neighbor, Mary, was interested in seeing the hawk nest, so off we went this morning. Saw both eyasses, although you can only see one of them in the photo.
Walked along the Charles River in Watertown before lunch. Almost right away, saw three downy woodpeckers: one male, with its red patch at the back of its head, and two females. The male was minding his own business, but the two females were in some sort of entanglement, fluttering around, landing a few inches from each other on a branch, flitting off a few feet, doing it all over again, just a few feet in front of us. I was so stunned I forgot to take a photo; I had never seen downies behave like that before. Here's what Cornell's Birds of the World has to say:
"Male usually defends a territory against other males, female against females, although apparent territorial defense by a male toward a female was reported (but interpreted as courtship) in the fall in Ohio. Both sexes use similar threat displays: tail fanned, crest raised, bill held high and waved back and forth jerkily as if dueling with an invisible foe with a sword, flight exaggerated and slow in a Butterfly Flight ("floating threat display"), but rapid in pursuit. Crest-raising identifies sex, exaggerates size, and reflects aggression. Wing Flicking—a rapid slight extension and raising of the wings —is a mild threat display that with increased intensity becomes the Wing Spreading Display. These displays of the Downy Woodpecker are very similar to those of the Ladder-backed and Nuttall's woodpeckers. If displaying does not drive an intruder away, adversaries may grapple bill to bill in midair."
Also: great blue heron fishing; Baltimore oriole in the trees; cormorant swallowing something it had caught in the river; song sparrows singing; gray catbirds.
View from one of the overlooks along the river.
May 16 At an Audubon meeting this afternoon, someone mentioned they'd been birding in Mt. Auburn cemetery in Cambridge over the weekend and saw a river otter in one of the little ponds there - amazing! And when I told my friend, Nancy, she said that they had been in Mt Auburn over the weekend, too, and ran into someone who had also seen it. I'm guessing it lives in the Charles River which is just a few hundred feet from the cemetery at one point.
May 18 Walked around the DeCordova outdoor sculpture museum in Lincoln with a friend. The view of Sandy Pond and beyond from the top floor patio of the building was wonderful. We could just barely see a couple of taller hills in the background, possibly Mt Wachusett and/or Mt Monadanock.
May 19 Went to Allandale Farm to pick up some annuals and herbs for the garden. Got back just in time to see this guy poking around in the back yard. Not at all frightened by me, let me walk up and kneel down to take the photo.
May 20 Walked around Ward's Pond this morning, on my way out for groceries. Heard a Baltimore oriole in the trees, flitting around. Ran into a guy with binoculars and chatted about the bird activity. He'd seen several warblers. As we talked, he spotted a muskrat swimming towards the reeds at one side of the pond; it stopped on a little mound of reeds to eat some greens. Fun to watch it for a few minutes.
After lunch, drove out to Concord, where one of the Audubon staff lives, to see the red-shouldered hawk nest he'd found a few weeks ago. One of the adults was on the nest, feeding 3 little grey fluffballs. Wonderful. At one point, we saw the second adult circling overhead, then zip down over the treetops and land in a nearby tree.
May 23 Went to have a look at the red-tail hawk nest this evening. At first, saw just the one adult standing on the nest. Occasionally saw one of the wings of one of the young flop around uncoordinatedly.
Then the second adult flew in, landed for just a few seconds before taking off again. The two eyasses then got up and started moving around the nest. They're so much bigger than just a week ago! And they're getting real wings with real wing feathers.
After a bit, I saw that they were ripping bits of flesh of something, presumably that the second adult had dropped off. So cool to see them developing! If you play the movie with the audio on, you can hear the baseball game going on right beneath the nest - the thwack of a bat hitting a ball, then the thud of the ball landing in a glove. I showed a few passersby - all thought I was taking photos of the kids playing baseball in the field and were delighted when they saw the hawk with its young.
May 25 Biking through the arboretum, was taken by this viburnum: Japanese snowball viburnum, planted in 1903, the tag said. Amazed that it's been there for nearly 120 years, still looking perfect.
May 27 Went to the hawk nest around 7pm, and could see the two young, hunkered down against the wind (storm coming later on tonight). No adult on the nest.
May 28 On my way into my acupuncture appointment in Roslindale, saw a couple of squirrels parked on an overhead wire, both with their tails all skinny and scrawny, with the ends curled up into a perfect circle the diameter of a golf ball; de-fluffed, I guess, by the recent rain. I'd never seen a squirrel tail like that before. And as they ran off, their tails unwound and straightened, in an almost cartoon-like fashion.
May 29 Met up with a couple of friends and their enthusiastic (is there another kind?) golden retriever for a walk in the woods by Hammond Pond in Chestnut Hill. The woods are a little hilly, with a couple of vertical rock faces used by climbers. Walking across the Green Line T tracks, we went into Houghton Garden, which I didn't know about. More woods, with a few ponds and a small stream, benches for contemplating life in the midst of nature.
May 30-31 In Provincetown, visiting a friend for a couple of days. Perfect weather, sunny, mild, breeze off the bay. Just looking out over the water so peaceful and relaxing. Went for walks through the woods around Ptown and along the shore at low tide early one morning. Plodging as my Northumbrian parents would call it; Wiktionary says plodge is a Tyneside word meaning "to wade or splash around especially in the sea". In the woods, lots of lady slippers, lovely to see.
At one point along the trail, we interrupted a family of red squirrels - one adult and about 8 teenage, three-quarter size squirrels. The adult and about half the teenagers dashed away up one tree while the rest went for the other side of the path, up a couple of other trees. Once out of our immediate way, they paused part way up the trees, looking down at us, almost curious. I saw the last of the first group zip into a hole in the tree trunk and disappear. The photo shows one of the other group, running along a tree trunk.
Early morning walk along Commercial St in the East End, past homes with beautiful gardens, several with entirely purple flowers: sturdy bearded irises, delicate Siberian irises, ridiculously tall allium with their spherical ball of star-shaped flowers, peonies budding, not yet quite out, and amazing wisteria, wandering over pergolas and archways.
Back home in the evening, taking Maddie down the driveway to the back yard, there was a rabbit right in the middle of the way, stock still. After a few seconds, it hopped off into the hostas, leaving behind about 8 tiny baby rabbits, just 3 or 4 inches long, some on their backs; I imagine they had been suckling. A few realized the dog was a problem and hopped into the bushes right away, while others looked around, unsure of what to do. Some hopped towards mom, others hopped into the lily of the valley on the other side of the driveway. And finally, one was left looking very exposed before it, too, realized it needed to leave. Maddie was good, not lunging at them, just looking on in wonder. Me, too.
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