October 2024

Tuesday October 1 Went for a walk along the Charles River in Watertown/Newton this morning with Susan and Ellen. Leaves starting to turn color. Liked this view of the marsh grasses by the footbridge.

Susan passed along this photo of a sign on Highway 407 in Ontario wishing monarch butterflies a safe migration. Those Canadians!

Wednesday October 2 Early morning sky on my walk to the pond.

Harvest from the veggies planted by Nicole, the Arb intern who stayed at my house this summer.

Beauty berries from one of the three bushes in my back yard.  They're all spectacular this fall - covered in rich purple berries.

Tuesday October 8 Went to visit a neighbor who has two Labrador Retrievers, Cooper and Emma. Cooper is a stocky yellow/red Lab, full of energy, bounding around. Emma, a 14 year old black lab, is on her last legs, but still loving pats and attention. I liked this teatowel in the kitchen. Labs are well known for their insatiable appetites. When I had Sandy, my yellow Lab, I once asked the vet how I could get her to stop eating goose poop. His response: "You can't. She's a Lab."

Wednesday October 9 Went to a Drawing Animals from Life class featuring a screech owl and a barred owl this evening, put on by the Mass Audubon Museum of American Bird Art in Canton, just south of Boston. Although there was limited time for drawing, and my sketches were pretty rough, I loved seeing the owls up close.

Eastern Screech Owl

Barred Owl

The owls were brought to Mass Audubon after being injured or abandoned as chicks, but for various reasons couldn't be returned to the wild. They're now educational owls, mostly visiting schools (or schools visit them). 

The Museum of American Bird Art renovated their old gallery space into a maker space called The Nest a few years ago and now puts on all sorts of classes, some for kids, others for adults. They have some cool tools: a laser cutter; a 3D printer; a kiln and more. A sampling of upcoming classes: Fall Foliage Inspired Ceramics Workshop; Nature Inspired Halloween Print Workshop; Printmaking Open Studio; Making Your Own Laser Cut Owl Pins; The Art and Ecology of Mushrooms. It's all pretty neat. Here's an owl pop-up card someone made there.

The Museum is planning a new exhibit building in Concord to show their extensive collection of bird art. A couple of examples are here, along with a photo of The Nest.'

Friday October 11 My friend Di is in Maine for a few days and spotted this election sign.

Monday October 14 We drove out to Wachusett Meadow, a Mass. Audubon sanctuary in central Massachusetts, to see some fall color. Walked to Otter Pond, admired the beaver lodge at the edge of the pond (I did see an otter there once, too!) and took in some of the color.

On the way home, we decided to follow the rural Rt. 62 for a more scenic trip than the main highway, Rt. 2. Even more impressive than the fall color was the Wachusett Dam, completed in 1905, in Clinton, which was the largest dam in the world when it was built and remains the largest hand-built dam in the world. It's hard to imagine how this was built by hand: 115' high above ground, 112' below ground, 1423' long. Some historical photos and information are at this link and this one. The reservoir still provides drinking water to 2.2 million residents of the state.

Wednesday October 16 I headed to Provincetown to join Susan for a few days. One of her friends had been staying at the condo last week to attend the Northeast Mycological Federation Annual Foray. In addition to foraging for mushrooms, she attended a workshop on using mushrooms for dying wool - here's the sample she made. I love the earthy colors!

Thursday October 17 Spectacular moonrise and sunset this evening. Full moon, glowing gold rising in the east while the sunset produced amazing color in the west, both visible from the beach by the condo.

Friday October 18 On a walk along the Old Colony Railroad trail in Ptown this morning, even I spotted lots of mushrooms (although I don't collect them as I don't know what's edible and what's not).  After weeks without rain and no mushrooms, one recent rainy day has produced a glut. Susan collected so many one evening that she made a big batch of mushroom soup and sauteed another batch. By the end of the month, one of her foraging friends gave up collecting more, as she couldn't eat or freeze them all.

Sunday October 20 After I left to head back to Boston, Susan spotted this fox in a parking lot just outside of Ptown. Wish I'd been there to see it, too.

Susan Brand

But there was some compensation: the trees in Boston are spectacular right now.

And tonight was the annual Jamaica Pond Lantern Parade, with kids in their Hallowe'en costumes, families walking around the pond with home-made lanterns (mostly decorated 2 liter soda bottles with candles stuck inside). A band at the boathouse, hot apple cider and food for sale. I especially liked this jellyfish costume.

Monday October 21 Sunrise at the pond.

Wednesday October 23 There was a hint of mist early this morning at the pond, so that the air itself seemed to glow.

 

The mist settled in the little gully, seemingly suspended there.

At the center of the pond, I saw three small ducks, too small to be mallards but hard to identify at a distance. Maybe the start of migrating ducks coming through?

The weather has been gorgeous this week - clear blue skies, surprisingly warm - in the mid-70s. I decided to go to Broadmoor, an Audubon sanctuary in Natick, just west of Boston.  At the marsh by the nature center, I spotted a great blue heron fishing close to the boardwalk. And at the larger marsh, further into the sanctuary, there was a kingfisher flying over the marsh, cackling away, and a pair of wood ducks swimming in and out of the grasses at the edge of the water. Also saw a red squirrel and garter snake.

 Thursday October 24 I went back to the pond after lunch to check out those three little ducks - this time, I could clearly see that they're ruddy ducks. And with them was a pair of buffleheads - cute! And another ruddy duck all alone, head tucked in, napping (after a long night of flying?). My first sighting of migrating ducks. Soon the hooded mergansers will arrive! Also saw a great blue heron on the island, perched on a low branch hanging over the water.

Went on to Ward's pond to check on the juvenile swan and its parents - still there. And I'm still wondering how it's going to fly away from the pond. It's a small pond in a gully, surrounded by trees, so it will be difficult for them to get airborne and get high enough to clear the trees. Also a pair of wood ducks hanging around a fallen tree lying in (and just out of) the water.

Had to check Leverett Pond, too: 6 male wood ducks and 1 female, under the shrubs overhanging the water.

Friday October 25 More gorgeous light and color at the pond this morning.

Saturday October 26 Early morning walk at the pond, in amongst a flock of a few dozen Canada geese, saw a few ruddy ducks, a male hooded merganser and what I thought might be a Northern shoveler. Went back later on in the morning and noticed another birder down on the gravel edge of the pond looking at a small group of mallards; when I looked through the binoculars, there they were: a pair of Northern shovelers, working their way along the edge of the pond, bills in the water, sifting out little invertebrates to eat. Don't see shovelers at the pond very often, so it was fun to spot them.

The water level in the pond is very low right now, as we've had little rain for over a month. Walking along the gravel shoreline, I noticed a muskrat lodge and realized that is normally nearly submerged. Over the spring and summer, there were lots of muskrats swimming in the pond in the early morning and around dusk - I sometimes saw 7 or 8 on a walk. For some reason, I haven't been seeing as many for the last few weeks. I wonder if it has something to do with the low water level.

Sunday October 27 Susan and I drove to Rhode Island today to have dinner with her cousins in North Kingstown. We left a little early so that we could stop at Newport on the way; I'd never been there before. Ocean Drive and the Cliff Walk were beautiful (yet another gorgeous autumn day).

Monday October 28 On my morning walk, I spotted a bald eagle flying over the pond! Very exciting! Got a good look at it through the binoculars and showed it to a woman who was walking by. Most winters I see one or two, but usually in January or February. This seemed very early for it to be here.

Later on, I heard a rustling sound and realized that it was from the chattering bills of a group of mallards  eating at the edge of the pond. You can hear them if you turn the sound on in this video.

Later on, Susan and I joined up with my friend Karen to walk in the Arboretum. Golden ginkos at Peter's Hill.