Tag Archives: European starling

Arboretum: Birds and Winter Fruit

Now that fresh fruit is no longer available, birds have taken to picking off what is left on the trees. Sometimes a frost or two helps soften fruit, making it more palatable. I saw a few birds visiting some fruit trees this Friday.

Cedar waxwings were all over a Korean mountain ash (Sorbus alnifolia), picking off the fruit.

Cedar waxwing eating fruit of mountain ash.
Cedar waxwing eating fruit of mountain ash.

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Spectacle Island Birds: Tree Swallows and Laughing Gulls

We saw quite a few birds last Monday on our trip to Spectacle Island, including a species of gull for the first time. We counted 45 double-crested cormorants near the island’s shores.

Double-crested cormorants
Double-crested cormorants

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A Walk through Olmsted Park

I took a walk through Olmsted Park yesterday, a piece of the Emerald Necklace within Jamaica Plain. I saw a mother mallard duck with a dozen ducklings in tow.

A mother mallard duck with some of her dozen ducklings
A mother mallard duck with some of her dozen ducklings

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Tour of the Rose Kennedy Greenway

The elevated Central Artery running through downtown Boston was dismantled starting in 2004 as part of the Big Dig. The automobile traffic that would have taken the highway now moves below ground. In its place, Boston got the Greenway. On Thursday, I took a tour of the Greenway parks.

The tour was led by Darrah Cole and Anthony Ruggiero, horticulturists working for the Greenway Conservancy, the non-profit group that manages the parks.

Our group started at the Chinatown gate. The park there has reduced green space because the community asked for a plaza where they could hold events. One end of the plaza is lined with Dutch elm-resistant ‘Frontier’ elms. These elms are a hybrid of the European field elm (Ulmus minor) and the Chinese elm (Ulmus parvifolia).

Frontier elms on Chinatown plaza
Frontier elms on Chinatown plaza

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