December 2022

December 2  We went to Mass Audubon's Drumlin Farm, in Lincoln, just west of Boston, to see their sheep, goats and pigs and to pick up some holiday cards at the gift shop.  Also saw their two foxes, snoozing in the mild weather in their pen.  After lunch in Concord, we walked in the town forest (ok, really some woods about half a mile from the center of town, hardly what qualifies to a Canadian as "forest"), along the Emerson-Thoreau Amble trail.  This little pond is about half way between its more famous neighbor, Walden Pond, and Concord.

December 4 On an afternoon walk in Susan's neighborhood in Cambridge, saw these snowdrops blooming, confused by all the mild weather we've been having.

December 5  In the afternoon, after picking up Maddie from her grooming appointment (she's at maximum cuteness), I took her for a walk in the Arb's conifer collection, where we heard an owl, maybe a barred owl, hooting right close to us.  I looked up into the nearby trees, but couldn't find it.

After the PBS Newshour was on TV, WGBH's Curiosity Desk had this interesting little four minute video on rainbows, featuring my MIT colleague, Mathias Kolle, who is interested in structural color.  To give you a taste, here's the intro:

"Why are the rainbows that I see outside after a rainstorm always a perfect arc?" asked von Sneidern.

Rainbows are, of course, one of nature’s most charming tricks of light. And light is what Massachusetts Institute of Technology Associate Professor Mathias Kolle spends his days pondering and studying in his lab.

As Kolle explained, in order for a rainbow to appear in the sky, you need three ingredients, so to speak: Sunlight, raindrops and you. And all three have to be in a particular position for the magic to happen.

“The sun has to be behind you,” he said. “Then water in the atmosphere in front of you. And that's usually when it rains... then what you also want to do is you want to look at the right spot.”"

December 6 Went to Allandale Farm to pick up a wreath for the front door and saw a couple of hooded mergansers on a downed log in the pond, resting, doing a little grooming.

December 7 Walking Maddie this morning near Susan's condo in Cambridge, I thought I saw a flash of white going up a tree and when I looked more carefully, I realized it was an albino squirrel. I got this photo as it sat on a branch eating a nut.

December 9  Full moon over the pond early this morning.

For my birthday today, we head to the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge at Plum Island, a long, narrow spit of land on the North Shore, to go birding. A perfectly clear day, not a cloud in the sky.  At the ocean, an invigorating wind, big surf coming in, whitecaps far out.  Only a few gulls flying by, the water too churning to spot any sea ducks. 

Behind the dunes, dozens and dozens of beautiful pintails on the Salt Pan, a brackish pond.  We drive along the spit, stopping at all the parking areas, but not many birds about. At one observation point we glimpse a small greyish hawk fly down and along the bank of the North Pool. A beautiful day, even without seeing a lot of different species of birds.  And just after we left the refuge, driving towards Newburyport, a great blue heron flew close alongside us over the marsh, more or less at the same height as the car. Wonderful.

December 11 Light snow this evening, the first that has stuck to the ground this winter.  Walking Maddie near Susan's place in Cambridge, I noticed this lovely geometric pattern of snow on the bricks of a driveway, created by the difference in temperature between the bricks and the tufts of grass in between them: warmer bricks and cooler grassy tufts.

 

December 12 Liked this splash of color on an otherwise grey day.

 December 15 After our walk, Maddie gave me her most soulful let-me-in look.

December 14 In Provincetown for the day to check on some work being done on the condo building.  Buffleheads, common eiders and red-breasted mergansers coming and going from the water right in front of the building.  Very convenient, warm winter birding from inside.  The Boston Globe/Mass Audubon reported 2400 red-breasted mergansers off Race Point and Herring Cove a few days ago.

December 18 On our walk through the Arb this morning, we spotted the golden rain trees, named for their golden flowers, with just the copper lanterns remaining on the branches. Earlier in the year I posted photos of the gold flowers on the blog.

I'm giving a talk on bird bills at the Arboretum on January 10.  If you're interested in attending (in person or online), please register at this link.

And here's my animal-filled holiday wreath on the front door.

December 19 A special treat this morning: news of ice flowers at the Arboretum!!! Ned Friedman, the Director of the Arb, sent out an email with his wonderful photos (below). With the right conditions (air below freezing, soil above freezing) water moves from the soil into the roots and up through the plant, cracking open a slit in a small twig at the extremity of the plant, allowing water to gradually ooze out of the crack, freezing as it meets the colder air, forming the "ice flowers".  I think that the striations you can see are individual ice crystals resulting from water extruding through small cavities known as pits in the plant's cell walls; the width of the ice crystals corresponds to the spacing of the pits (Ned reminded me about pits in the cell walls.) You can read more about ice flowers at Ned's blog post and at this NOAA website.

December 22 For years, a couple of screech owls have frequented a hole in a tree at Fresh Pond. Recently, there have been reports of a red one and a grey one; Susan saw the grey one tucked in today.

December 24 Big storm came through yesterday, rain and high winds, with ridiculous temperature drops:  10:30am 56F (13C); 6:30pm 36F (2C); 10:30pm 22F (-6C). And early this morning it is 11F (-12C), wind chill -4F (-20C).

December 26 Squirrel burying an acorn in my window box outside the kitchen door this morning. Seemed unperturbed by me standing by the door taking the photo.

December 27  Walking in the Arb this afternoon, we were on the lookout for the Franklin trees.  Extinct in the wild, all living Franklin trees are descended from seeds collected in Georgia in 1776 by William Bartram; he named the tree for his friend Benjamin Franklin.   The Franklin trees at the Arb are the oldest in the world.

Nearby was a paperbark maple, with its shiny, peeling sienna bark, which always seems a bit unreal to me.

December 28 On my early morning walk with Maddie, the pond was mostly covered in a thin layer of ice, gathering the many Canada geese and hooded mergansers in the remaining open water at the end of the pond near my house.  Lots of hoodies at the pond right now, so many that I've stopped trying to count them. Perhaps 75 or so.

December 29 Wonderfully sunny and mild today, in the 40s.  We had a great day of birding, up at Cape Ann, a peninsula that sticks out into the Atlantic, north of Boston. Driving along the shore, we stopped at the usual spots: Gloucester harbor, Bass Rocks, Rockport harbor, the granite pier, Emerson Inn and Halibut Point.  Lots of common eiders, red-breasted mergansers, buffleheads. Here's how Cornell's All About Birds describes the mergansers:  "Males are decked out with a dark green shaggy head, a red bill and eye, and a rusty chest. Females lack the male's bright colors but also don the same messy do." A small group of common goldeneyes, close enough to get a good look at their rather stunningly yellow eyes contrasting with their dark green heads.  A few scoters, white-winged scoters and a surf scoter, with their black bodies, bulbous white and orange bills and white highlights on their heads. Both red-throated and common loons, always alone, diving, surfacing, diving again. Stopped at Rockport for lunch at a cafe overlooking the water and watched a loon, a couple of buffleheads and a merganser near the sea wall.  At the Rockport beach, a few American wigeons.  Best of all, a couple of harlequin ducks at the granite pier and another half dozen close to the rocky shore at Halibut Point.

Susan birding at Bass Rocks

Halibut Point

December 31 Walking Maddie around Susan's neighborhood in Cambridge this morning, spotted a squirrel trifecta: a single black one, a single white one and lots of the usual greys.