Over the weekend, I saw a turkey crossing the road in the Longwood Mall area. He (looks like a male to me) quickly moved into someone’s yard where I managed to get a photo of him.
This is not the first time I’ve seen a wild turkey in the Longwood area. I once saw a turkey leading her baby chicks on Louis Pasteur Ave. Brookline appears to have a large wild turkey population, which has been creating some problems for the town recently.
Jef led us on a walk along the banks of the Muddy River on a sunny, seasonal spring day. We first stopped to view some outdoor sculpture as part of the Through the Trees exhibition by studios without walls.
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Yesterday started off as a sunny, warm, summer-like day but quickly turned cloudy, cold, and windy. Maybe it was this sudden turn of weather that kept many birds from showing themselves. Still, the robins and grackles and sparrows were out.
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We saw a couple birds for the first time this spring on yesterday’s walk around Jamaica Pond. A spotted sandpiper was hopping along the banks, trying to keep its distance from us. When it flew away, it flew low over the water.
We also saw a yellow-rumped warbler. We could easily see the yellow patch under the wing but had to wait until the bird ruffled its feathers for us to see the namesake yellow patch on its back.
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I saw two birds for the first time yesterday. First, a pair of double-crested cormorants were lounging in the middle of Leverett Pond, black but for their orange chins.
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Jamaica Pond is finally ice-free! The wind coming off the water yesterday, however, did not feel like it. We took a walk as the sun set.
American coots were diving for vegetation and then squabbling once a coot was successful at obtaining some. It’s late in the year for the coots, which should leave for their summer breeding grounds in the Upper Midwest and Canada any day now.
I saw two species of birds for the first time on Monday, while walking around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. First, the ruddy ducks, traveling in a large flock, some of them with their tails up in the air.
And then two golden-crowned kinglets, tiny blimp-like birds with no necks. I was able to approach them fairly close as they danced around and through the branches of shrubs.
With snow on the ground and a chill in the air, Saturday did not feel like spring. But the birds at the Arnold Arboretum were singing their spring songs. We found large concentrations of birds near the Visitor Center and around Faxon Pond.
The red-winged blackbirds, all males as far as we could tell, were singing loudly. Common grackles, another sign of spring, checked us out with those freakishly white eyes of theirs.
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Cold and windy, yesterday was not the best day to visit the Boston Public Garden. But the sky was clear, and visitors were sliding along the ice on the lagoon.
A few birds were out. The usual suspects such as the rock pigeons, starlings, robins, and house sparrows. But I also managed to see a blue jay and this red-tailed hawk.
The blue jay was flitting about on a weeping willow that had a hole running clear through one of its branches. I wonder what creature made that happen.
A light snow fell as I walked through Olmsted Park. I didn’t see a single bird in Ward’s Pond. It wasn’t until Willow Pond that I ran into the Canada geese.
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