As I was coming home for lunch to walk the dogs I saw a deer in Boston. I was on the Jamaicaway, and the deer was in Olmsted Park by Leverett pond.  It was an adult with no antlers, and it was running in an apparent panic.

This is a first for me; I get to add white-tailed deer to my catalog of Boston wildlife.  I knew that they were often seen at the Boston Nature Center, but this is my first time seeing one in Boston.  This is a touch closer to The City, about three miles from Kenmore Square.  (In the past I've joked about the encroachment of deer into cities by saying that I don't expect to see deer in Kenmore Square, but in some outer city parks.  Kenmore Square, in case you don't know, is famous as the location of the Citgo sign you can see on televised Red Sox games.)  I'm sure this deer was outside of its normal range and I won't be shocked if I see its carcass in the middle of the J-way on the way back to work.  But I consider today a landmark of a kind--my first Boston deer.

(You may remember my first urban deer from my trip to the Pacific Northwest.)

Charlie and I walked around Jamaica Pond today, while Alexis and Maggie were at dog school.
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I had to peel this Boston ivy off the screen to close the storm window today.

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On this day in 365 Urban Species: American Beech.

On this day in 365 Urban Species: Poison ivy, which also shows beautiful fall colors.

On this day in 365 Urban Species: Tree of Heaven. Another top ten species! My favorite urban tree, and one of the reasons I started writing about urban nature.

Afternoon nap and movie companions. ( we went for a walk, too )
On this day in 365 Urban Species: Carpetweed and spurge, two plants that seem made for sprouting in sidewalks.

Olmsted Park.

On this day in 365 Urban Species: Chicken mushroom. It's been far too dry for those so far this summer .

Not the best photography here, but stuff that is nice to look at, I think.


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This past Sunday we took the dogs around Olmsted Park.( Read more... )

Does anyone else find themselves taking pictures of the same view, over and over? This view of Leverett Pond, and the apartment building reflected in it, is a recurring theme for me. This shot was taken a week ago. I took another today (you'll probably see it in about a week).

It's been a long time, but you've all been so kind and helpful! Here is a set of photos from our dogwalk this past Sunday, in Olmsted Park in Boston and Brookline.



I think I'll be collecting Signs of Spring until the third week of June. This week: Skunk Cabbage. These are the flowers, which appear before the foliage.( Read more... )

Once again, I'm in the media! This time for attending a public meeting and bringing up landchovies.

Thanks to Gribley for letting me know I'm still famous.

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The thick ice on Leverett Pond broke into floes, and some washed up on the Boston side of Olmsted Park during last weeks flooding rains.( Read more... )

A light snow made for a pretty landscape in Olmsted Park today. This is my favorite view of Ward's Pond.

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Ward's Pond.

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Photos by cottonmanifesto. Location: Olmsted park.

Urban species #303: Stemonitis axifera

Repeatedly (probably too repeatedly) I have used this project as a platform to expound upon the underappreciated biodiversity of beautiful forms in the fungus kingdom. Outside of that kingdom, but usually studied in the same field guides and classes, are the slime molds, which show an extraordinary range of bizarre appearances themselves. These animal-like organisms are similar (to concieve in our minds) to colonial amobae, swarming masses of plasma, thousands of cells without membranes grouped together in a gooey mobile soup. This plasma stage crawls and eats, usually sweeping across wet dead wood, capturing and consuming mircroorganisms. When their microhabitat dries up, the plasma collects itself into fungus-like fruiting bodies that package up spores to be carried away on the air in order to grow a new slime mold in greener pastures, as it were. It is this fruiting body stage that we usually encounter, in weird and interesting shapes, some of which are common enough to have their own common names. Already we have dared to examine creatures called "dog vomit" and "wolf's milk." Stemonitis doesn't have a broadly accepted common name, but is referred to by the incongruous combination of words "chocolate tube slime." Its appearance isn't wholly unlike tubes of chocolate, but it looks more like dusty brush bristles, or a short tuft of hair stuck to a dead log (the ones in our photographs have shed many of their spores, so the bristles look somewhat faint and feathery). Before the spores are mature the mass is white and gelatinous, and apparently delicious to slugs. There are many different species of Stemonitis which are difficult to identify to species without looking at the spores with a microscope. S. axifera is most commonly referred to, and is probably found worldwide.

Photos by cottonmanifesto

Urban species #302: Ruddy duck Oxyura jamaicensis

Yesterday, we spotted our first winter duck on Leverett Pond. Leverett Pond is a widening of the muddy river between Boston and Brookline, in Olmsted Park. Because of its width, and the fact that it is fed by relatively warm, salty, and polluted water from storm drains and street runoff, Leverett Pond never fully freezes. Many different duck species converge there in wintertime, having left summer breeding places in Canada. Some ducks are only there for a few days or weeks, leaving to find better food resources, less crowded water, or fewer human disturbances, but many come in fall and stay until early spring. The ruddy ducks are usually there for a few months.

Ruddy ducks are small diving ducks with distinctive upturned tails. Their name comes from the male's reddish breeding plumage. As the male's feathers get ruddy, his bill gets blue, a feature that our duck is hiding from us here. You'll have to go peek at someone else's site to see that. Ruddy ducks dive under the water to catch insect larvae and mollusks, and to graze on aquatic plants. This duck species has been introduced to Britain, where it hybridizes with the closely related, and endangered, white-headed duck (O. leucocephala).

Olmsted Park and the Riverway, this Sunday.



Between Willow and Spring Ponds, Olmsted Park.

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Photos by cottonmanifesto. Location: Olmsted Park.
Urban species #298: Pear-shaped puffball Lycoperdon pyriforme

Puffballs are familiar to most people, but it may be surprising to see them erupting from wood, rather than from grassy soil. But while most fungi that produce puffballs feed on organic matter within fertile soil, the pear-shaped puffball's fungus digests wood. When the fungus is ready to reproduce, clusters of puffballs appear on the top of the dead wood. They have short stems, presumably helping to lift them out of the reach of smaller, lazier insects and slugs, and to give their spores a centimeter boost. The stem gives these mushrooms their inverted pear shape for which they are named. When the puffballs are fresh, their inner flesh is white and edible, if rather a small morsel for most bipedal foragers. Their surface is pebbly or "gem-studded"; a very similar puffball that grows on soil is called the gem-studded puffball Lycoperdon gemmatum. As the puffball's flesh matures, it yellows, then browns, becoming inedible. When the spores are ready for dispersal, an aperture forms at the top of the mushroom. Puffs of "smoke" composed of hundreds of thousands of spores blow out of the aperture when a raindrop falls on the puffball's now leathery hide. Similar results can be obtained by lightly poking or tapping the puffball. The genus name of many species of puffballs comes from an imaginative description of the reproductive discharge: Lycoperdon means "wolf fart."



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