June 2023

Friday June 2 On our morning walk, just around the corner from the house, we saw a nuthatch parked on the sidewalk, not moving, not even when Maddie got within a few feet. At first I thought it must be a juvenile or injured, but it flew off after a minute or so, and looking up nuthatch photos on the web, it seems it was an adult.

After breakfast, I biked along the Emerald Necklace, enjoying the warm sun of late spring, the trees all leafed out, flowers blooming everywhere. Wonderful. As I went by the Muddy River, I noticed this turtle perched over a hole she had dug in soft dirt. I've seen turtles laying eggs around here before at this time of year so I stopped to take a closer look and there it was: a spherical white egg dropping into the hole; you can just see it on her left side in the first second of the video.

And it's the time of year when Mass Art and Design puts on their outdoor sculpture show along the Muddy River, so I thought I'd include this, too.

Monday June 5 Travelling to Hog Island, Maine, near Damariscotta, to give a talk on bird bills for the National Audubon bird camp there. Beautiful views along the way.


Kittery, Maine

Between Damariscotta and Hog Island, next to the road, fields of pink and purple lupines blooming.

At the dock where the boat to Hog Island lands, a pair of osprey are nesting on a platform on top of the boathouse. The camp staff said that there are 3 eggs in the nest, about ready to hatch. A few years ago, a pair of bald eagles watched the nest, letting the adult ospreys fatten the chicks up until they were nearly ready to fly before killing them. Last year, the ospreys aggressively defended the nest, and this year, the eagles have been leaving them alone.

Tuesday June 6 A view from Hog Island.

Back in Boston today, saw a female turkey with 8 fuzzy baby turkeys (poults), maybe a week or so old, along Arlington St. in Cambridge. The little poults were running, their legs almost spinning, to keep up with their mom.

Friday June 9 The dogwood in my front garden is covered in creamy white blossoms at the moment.

Sunday June 11 Walking at the Arboretum this afternoon, we came down the hill from the conifers to find a wall of gorgeous mountain laurel, white, cream, pink and red, lining the roadway. While enjoying the blossoms, we ran into Ned Friedman, the Director of the Arb, taking it all in, too. Ned is full of energy and enthusiasm and always gives me the impression that he can't quite believe his good fortune to be the Director of the Arb.

Monday June 12 Walking around Ward's Pond on the Emerald Necklace, I noticed that the cattail leaves are now quite a bit taller than me, even when I'm standing on the boardwalk, about a foot above the ground. Perhaps something like eight feet tall. What is really remarkable is their internal structure, like a continuous strip of I-beams, that enables them to stand so straight and tall, without bending over too much.


Scanning electron microscope image of the cross section of a cattail leaf	.

Iris leaves are tall, narrow and upright, too.

The striations along their length

are dense fibers (called sclerenchyma, from the Greek skleros = hard) that run longitudinally just beneath the surfaces of the leaf. If you run your finger across an iris leaf, you can easily feel the sclerenchyma fibers. The scanning electron microscope image of the cross section shows one of the fibers at the top left of the image. The outer layers of these stiff fibers are surrounded by foamier cells which together constitute what is known as a fiber composite. Another example of a fiber composite is a carbon tennis racket, which contains carbon fibers in epoxy.

The middle of the iris leaf is made up of foamy cells, too (called parenchyma), that act mechanically like the inner section of an I beam. Mechanically, the leaf acts the same way as the cattail leaf. The fibres along the outside of the leaf act like the outer flanges of an I beam while the foamy core acts like the upright web.

Tuesday June 13 The blueberry bushes in my back garden have berries on them - a few even turning blue!

Driving to Provincetown this afternoon, I heard on the radio that four orca whales had been spotted off Nantucket on Sunday; here's a link to the NY Times story. And there was another report of one swimming with a pod of dolphins at Stellwagen Bank, in Massachusetts Bay, the same day. Very unusual to see orcas in Massachusetts waters.

Wednesday June 14 Went for a walk in Wellfleet with Nick, one of the National Park rangers, through scrub oak and pine forest to White Crest beach on the Atlantic shore and then back passing Duck Pond and Dyer Pond. At the beach, saw a few seals swimming close to the shore, heading towards Provincetown. After the hike, at lunch at Wellfleet harbor, saw an osprey on its platform nest high up over the parking lot.


White Crest beach

Dyer Pond

Wednesday June 21 Perfect first day of summer: sunny, 65F, slight breeze. Went on another Ranger Nick walk, in Wellfleet again, but this time to the bay side, to Bound Brook Island beach. Gorgeous beach, nearly deserted except for our hiking group. From one viewpoint along the way, it was so clear that we could see across to Plymouth on the other side of the bay, about 30 miles away.

After the walk, we went to Wellfleet harbor again to check on the osprey nest in the parking lot. Driving in we could see both adults on the nest, and with the telescope, we could just make out the fuzzy heads of the two young. Managed to get this photo with my phone on the telescope; you can just make out one of the young to the left of the adults.

Stopped at the Wellfleet Audubon sanctuary and saw a few purple martins going into the nest boxes. And an osprey landing on another platform nest high above the meadow.

Friday June 23 Love seeing iris flowers, all wound up tightly, just before opening. Engineers would call these "deployable structures". These Japanese irises were in Suzanne's garden, a communal flower garden near Susan's condo in Ptown, kept by local volunteers.