Nature Notes

Wednesday, Feb 3 Early morning walk at Ward's Pond, all frozen over. Noticed a new  wood duck nesting box, replacing the old, weathered, grey one on the other side of the pond by the little marsh.  One spring, walking there, I laughed at seeing a pair of wood ducks perched on top of the old box, looking for all the world like they had just been to a realtor's open house and were discussing the pros and cons of the box for their eggs.  Wood ducks like to nest over or near water as their ducklings are precocious, leaping out of the nest a day after hatching, stubby little wings frantically held out to slow their descent. The PBS show Nature has an amusing video clip of a wood duckling's leap  here. The Cornell All About Birds website notes that female wood ducks engage in "egg-dumping", laying eggs in another pairs' nest box to be raised by the other female.  Unusually large clutches of nearly 30 eggs have been found in some nest boxes, about triple the aver...

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...