{"id":1169,"date":"2013-10-02T14:55:20","date_gmt":"2013-10-02T18:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/?p=1169"},"modified":"2014-04-07T01:19:30","modified_gmt":"2014-04-07T05:19:30","slug":"urban-nature-walk-savin-hill-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/urban-nature-walk-savin-hill-beach\/","title":{"rendered":"Urban Nature Walk: Savin Hill Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jef led three of us on an urban nature walk around a very urban beach. Savin Hill Beach<\/a> in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston is bordered by Interstate 93 and William Morrissey Boulevard. We were surprised at the diversity of water birds we found, including a few I hadn’t previously seen in the Boston area.<\/p>\n

\"Savin
Savin Hill Beach in Dorchester<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n<\/p>\n

A great egret, yellow bill and black legs, takes off from its perch on the Dorchester Yacht Club. Two of these egrets graced the beach.<\/p>\n

\"Great
Great egret<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A great blue heron comes in for a landing. This photo makes it look like the bird comically slipped on a banana.<\/p>\n

\"Great
Great blue heron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A couple of greater yellowlegs<\/a> wandered the shore.<\/p>\n

\"Greater
Greater yellowlegs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At one point, all three of the above birds stood close to each other, making for a nice size comparison.<\/p>\n

\"Three
From left to right: great blue heron, great egret, greater yellowlegs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A few double-crested cormorants dove for fish.<\/p>\n

\"double-crested
double-crested cormorant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A pair of American crows duked it out mid-air.<\/p>\n

\"American
American crows<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A solitary semipalmated plover<\/a> also made the checklist<\/a> for the day.<\/p>\n

\"Semipalmated
Semipalmated plover<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We found a couple of periwinkles and dying green crabs in the salt marshes. But most of these creatures were on or under the rocks in Malibu Beach, across the street. We found a common periwinkle there crawling on a broken piece of porcelain.<\/p>\n

\"Common
Common periwinkle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We also found a few green crabs<\/a> (Carcinus maenus<\/i>), one of which Jef picked up.<\/p>\n

\"Green
Green crab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Green
Green crab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The skeleton of a large fish lay drying on the rocks.<\/p>\n

\"Fish
Fish skeleton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An area landmark, a National Grid gas tank painted in rainbow colors, stood not too far away. The work by Corita Kent is entitled Rainbow Swash<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"National
National Grid gas tank<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Back to Savin Hill Beach, we found a number of salt-tolerant plants. Sea lavender<\/a> (Limonium carolinianum<\/i>) with its dark green basal leaves was in flower, although the plant looked a little dry.<\/p>\n

\"Sea
Sea lavender<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jef tasted the cylindrical projections of this saltwort plant (Salicornia<\/i>). “Salty,” he said. The projections, which resemble alien fingers, range from green to red, and are edible<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Saltwort\"
Saltwort<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Seaside goldenrod<\/a> (Solidago sempervirens<\/i>) bloomed profusely at the beach’s edge.<\/p>\n

\"Seaside
Seaside goldenrod<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This salt-tolerant goldenrod has waxy leaves that lack teeth, and showy flowers.<\/p>\n

\"Seaside
Seaside goldenrod flowers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Beach rose<\/a> (Rosa rugosa<\/i>) has developed its red fruit, called rose-hips.<\/p>\n

\"Beach
Beach rose<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Trees lined an area across the boardwalk. One of them, hackberry<\/a> (Celtis<\/i>) is fairly rare in Boston. It is easily identifiable by its bark, which develops dark warts.<\/p>\n

\"Hackberry
Hackberry bark<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A number of wildflowers grew underneath the trees. Jef identified this plant with light blue flowers as blue wood aster<\/a> (Aster cordifolius<\/i>).<\/p>\n

\"Blue
Blue wood aster<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our native pokeweed (Phytolacca americana<\/i>) had plenty of dark purple berries on it.<\/p>\n

\"Poke
Poke berries<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jef pointed out the dried seed pods of the money plant<\/a> (Lunaria annua<\/i>). This non-native is planted in the belief that it will make the gardener money, its seed pods resembling silver dollars.<\/p>\n

\"Money
Money plant seedpods<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Asiatic dayflower<\/a> (Commelina communis<\/i>), a popular ornamental, held its small blue blooms. Each flower blooms during the morning for a single day, hence the common name.<\/p>\n

\"Asiatic
Asiatic dayflower<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Finally, the ever-invasive Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica<\/i>) has started to bear fruit.<\/p>\n

\"Japanese
Japanese knotweed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I only photographed one insect on this walk: the larva of an Asian multi-colored beetle<\/a> (Harmonia axyridis<\/i>). This orange and black creature with double-tipped spines looks nothing like a ladybug, but avidly consumes aphids just as the adults do.<\/p>\n

\"Asian
Asian multi-colored beetle larva<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thanks to Jef for leading another entertaining and educational walk on this beautiful day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jef led three of us on an urban nature walk around a very urban beach. Savin Hill Beach in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston is bordered by Interstate 93 and William Morrissey Boulevard. We were surprised at the diversity of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[446,441,117,449,224,279,58,190,318,451,376,452,439,105,132,442,358,185,369,440,448,86,133,444,443,450,493,142,378,339,43,340,311,312,445,371,447,5,82],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1169"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1440,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions\/1440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}