I need to post these pictures before I load the new batch on to Photobucket or I'll go batty! This little guy was stuck to the zoo hospital one early morning. He was gone later when I remembered he was there.

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Alexis and the dogs and I went to Cochituate State Park in Natick, although I think we wandered onto the grounds of the Wayland Town Beach. Charlie got in his first good swim of the year.

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Last Wednesday I volunteered at the Antigua Humane Society. After I did some work, I took some pictures. ( Read more... )

I noticed that despite a week of above-freezing temperatures, Ward's Pond is still covered with ice.
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Vermont has a lot more snow than Boston, and it's much nicer and fluffier.

( big picture behind cut )

Green street station.
( pond panorama behind the cut )

On this day in 365 Urban Species; American sea rocket.

By our last day on Kauai, we had driven as far up the east coast road as you can, all the way to the end of the road that goes into the canyon, and almost all the way up the west coast road. The west coast road peters out in a scrubland near a military base. The last stores and stuff are miles behind, and the road just continues up into this weird dense vegetation, former sugar cane fields that have turned into unlovely tangles. It felt very much like the set-up for a horror movie. All we would need is for the car to break down, then we would have to survive in the thickets (we would have needed about 4 other people with us, so that we could get picked off one by one).

We knew that there was a beach up there somewhere, the last accessible place on the road before the Na Pali coast. We found the turn-off for it and went away. The road gave way to a packed sand trail, wide enough for cars, but so rutted and textured that an atv would have been a better choice than our rented Corolla. I wouldn't have thought it was a place we were supposed to be at all, except that there was a fair amount of traffic on it. I tried to steer around the biggest potholes, accelerating to 10 or 15 mph when we found smooth patches, but most of it was very rough going.

We kept seeing clearings in the vegetation, thinking, "Okay, there's the beach, right around the next bend," but the road kept on. Several times I thought we should probably turn around, before we got stuck out there. After about a half hour of slow driving on five miles of bad road, we got to the destination. A little park bathroom building and a handful of cars marked the parking area. I got out and immediately noticed that the car had lost a hubcap on the bumpy road. Dad and I discussed how much the rental car company would charge us for it, and we agreed that after we went over to the beach, we should probably make an effort to find it. A quick trip to the bathroom to relieve a bumped up bladder, and then we headed over a sandy ridge to the sound of the ocean.

The conditions weren't right to make the sands bark, but that's okay. I'd seen a lot of sandy beaches that week, but nothing quite like this. ( a )

Waimea canyon is the most conspicuous feature of Kokee State Park. Here are some other features, big and small:



Crocosmia. I never did identify this wildflower--anyone know it? It was common in the higher elevations of the park, along paths and roadsides.( Read more... )

Charlie swimming in the North River, at the Norris Reservation in Norwood.

( more from the Norris Reservation. )

Here's my dad, photographing the vista outside the National Tropical Botanical Garden.

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Wailua falls( Read more... )

I'm starting to fall behind in my postings! This post is about yesterday's trip to Pearl Harbor. Getting there was an adventure.

We were aware that we needed to get started early in order to avoid the long delay. We were on a tour leaving at 8:30 (relatively late) and were told that we would be back no later than 2:00. That seemed like a long time, but what the hey, when are we ever going to have the chance again. When we got to Pearl Harbor, we were told that we were in a queue to see the monument (and the compulsory film before the monument) scheduled at 2:00, meaning we wouldn't get back until after 4:00. All the other people on the tour (23 of us total) were told the same as us: we'd be back by 2. Suddenly there was a mutiny, and everyone was demanding to be taken back to their hotels to try to salvage their vacations. We thought, well, if there's a chance to get the day back we'll take it; but once the dust settled, it seemed that the others just wanted a chance to make a scene, and they would stay for the whole program. In the end, only one person was taken back to her hotel. Hopefully the tour operators aren't telling people that they will be back at 2:00 any more.

The visitor's center, with its tiny museum and tinier snack bar is pretty well done, but crowded almost by design. There are some things to see outside--a submarine and a monument to lost submarines for example, and some good interpretive exhibits. Apparently they are working on building a new one, and are fundraising and trying hard to sell audio tours narrated by Ernest Borgnine. I actually learned a lot about the attack on Pearl Harbor, which considering my dad is a history teacher, is pretty embarrassing. Apparently the Japanese attacked an American naval base, drawing the US into the second world war. Just kidding--that was about the only thing I knew before.

( On to the pictures! )

We did an Urban Nature Walk at Deer Island this past Sunday. I was mostly talking during it, but I got a few pictures of the other participants.( Read more... )

cottonmanifesto and I went to Castle Island, South Boston yesterday. She took all the good pictures, but I got a couple shots here and there.



Here she is photographing a group of brants. (wild geese)

( four more, including panoramas )

She loves the sun. As do the dogs.


( the big picture )

A person visiting the Caribbean as a tourist is likely to indulge in a number of activities. They will bask in the tropical sunshine and swim in the clear turquoise water. They may snorkel about the coral or walk along soft white and pink beaches by day and sip rum drinks by night. But will the tourist take note of the wildlife around them? Of course they'll see the birds by the water, and the dazzling reef fish below their sailboats, and they may enjoy the sights and smells of colorful flowering trees and vines planted around the resorts and hotels.

But a typical Caribbean tourist may notice other wildlife in their vacation surroundings. Being the tropics, there are insects, of every size from microscopic to heroic. Richly flowered landscapes feed nectar-loving creatures, and the insects feed an array of birds and reptiles. Wildlife that doesn't appear in tourist brochures, from mosquitoes to feral pigs, makes up the majority of the island fauna. Outside of the fenced developments wild plants cope with an assault of countless loose livestock animals, and only the hardiest can thrive.

There are cities small and large throughout the West Indies, but by a certain definition, nearly all of the land can be considered urban. The landscape has been drastically altered since the time of Columbus, when the first goats and pigs--and unintentionally, rats--were set loose on the islands. The succeeding centuries saw intense agricultural use, monocultures of tobacco and then sugar, driven by imported human slave labor. Only in the twentieth century did the tourist trade develop, and the concept of island paradise swept through the Antilles. To Europeans and North Americans, the Caribbean appears to be an unspoiled natural playground of sun and sand. Step away from the palm tree and sunset image and the natural landscape is closer in ecology to any long-settled suburb.

The pleasure for me visiting Antigua, beyond the obvious delights of warm air and water, gorgeous uncrowded beaches, and rum by the pool, is seeing the natural history of an unfamiliar environment. Like in North America, many species have been eliminated and extirpated, many before they even had the chance to be described. And likewise, a few species that were once small in number were pre-adapted to the ecology that came with human development. These few are worth understanding and appreciating. These are the species we share the future with--those animals and plants that can thrive in our cities and neighborhoods, alongside our livestock and crops, hotels and bars.

A little more than a week was what I had, and I'll post one species from Antigua for each day I missed. Each day I'll also keep up with the project; April and May promise to offer more choices than previous months. As usual, the best photographs come from cottonmanifesto, but I couldn't keep my hands off my camera either, so I'll post some of those as well.

Later today I'll get back to it, but in the meanwhile, here's some of the landscape for you to enjoy:
( click for panorama )