I feel like I'm in a contest with myself to come up with the ugliest snapshot.

Warm day today, nearly 80 in the Boston area. On our evening dog walk it had cooled down a bit, and the Riverway was thick with birds. We saw a half dozen catbirds, three groups of Canada geese with goslings, and a few unidentifiable warblers. And then on the way back I heard my favorite bird song. It was right by the path, so we stopped for a while until we could see him. He sang for a few times more, and at the moment when Alexis pulled her camera out, he flew off.

While at a stoplight on Blue Hill Ave, on a zoo errand in the zoo van.

The view out my office window is getting better every day!

After getting to work at 6 this morning, I was rewarded with my first Baltimore oriole sighting this morning (having heard them the past two evenings). Then, about an hour later, over the heads of a crowd of disinterested parties, my first catbird of the year! Alexis rejoices for catbirds with the same passion that she reviles juncos. And then, just a few minutes ago as I sat on the warm grass in the park with Jim and Charlie, we were buzzed by the swallows that live in the nearby stone bridges. Three firsts of the year in two days! Not bad at all.

I forgot to post this last night. We heard our first oriole of the year! We couldn't see it, but the song was unmistakable. I think the same individuals claim the same territories around us. Orioles seem to each have different songs, and I'm pretty sure I recognized the melody of the one we heard last night. It's a nice feeling, like seeing a friend you haven't seen in months.

No one who grew up in the Pioneer Valley will be surprised that this is a Hampshire College study. Hey, if you can design your own curriculum, why not robot squirrels?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080503/ap_on_sc/robotic_squirrel

( in case the story goes away, or you don't want to follow the link )

This is a pretty cool tool. You just type in an address, and it tells you how "walkable" the area is, in terms of how close different services and stores are. My neighborhood scored an 86, which is pretty good but makes me wonder what neighborhood could possibly get a 100. Maybe if you lived in a shopping mall, or in certain parts of New York.

Also, it's clearly not a perfect program, as it told me that my closest bar was an Orange Julius. I wouldn't have moved here if that was true.

Tell me what your neighborhood's walkability score is!

We went hiking in the woods near West Roxbury Quarry yesterday. We found some interesting things.
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We look at Alexis' slideshow of pictures, upon returning from the West Roxbury Quarry.

Today, among other things, I dusted our fireworks collection.

Just a few shots to show you what it looks like in my neighborhood these days.
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Today was the vet tech student's last day. Thanks for all the hard work, c.!

I finally saw Cronenberg's The Fly! Hey wirrrn, now I HAVE heard of insect politics! Read my take on this classic, 22 years after the fact, here!

Boy, two, bitten in face by dog
The dog is a staffordshire bull terrier--a pit bull by most American bsl, but not by the UK's Dangerous Dog Act, which bans 'American' pit bulls. The circumstances of the bite are not mentioned, except that the dog belonged to relatives--the boy was a stranger to the dog, but everyone involved is 'family.' Someone quoted in the article says, "If the owners can't keep dogs under control when they're around their own family, how are they going to behave towards anybody else?"

The first comment to the story is someone wondering how someone could keep that kind of dog around children, followed by a deluge of comments quoting from the breed standard describing the staffy as a good family dog that is good around children. No description of the child's injuries except that the single bite 'required hospitalization.'


Woman, 85, Severely Bitten On Face In Dog Attack
Here the circumstances of the attack are described, which is necessary, since adults are so rarely the victims in dog attacks, especially those that result in facial injuries. Probably the reporter felt that the fact that the victim was 85 was especially important--more attention-grabbing than that '2' in the first story. The woman was on her hands and knees cleaning when the dog bit her. It is not explained, however, who the dog belonged to. The injuries are described in some detail: 60 stitches needed, plastic surgery, and morphine needed for the pain.

The breed of dog, cocker spaniel, is mentioned once in the article but not elaborated on by experts or neighbors--or, so far, by the peanut gallery on the internet-- as a factor in the attack.