{"id":386,"date":"2013-05-08T15:11:30","date_gmt":"2013-05-08T19:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/?p=386"},"modified":"2014-04-07T01:02:41","modified_gmt":"2014-04-07T05:02:41","slug":"forest-hills-cemetery-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/forest-hills-cemetery-spring\/","title":{"rendered":"Forest Hills Cemetery on a Spring Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was the last in a long streak of sunny and dry days in Boston. I visited Forest Hills Cemetery to see what I could find.<\/p>\n

I saw this eastern forktail damselfly resting on a reed at the edge of Lake Hibiscus. Damselflies rest with their wings closed or only slightly open. According to A Field Guide to the Dragonflies and Damselflies of Massachusetts<\/i><\/a>, eastern forktails emerge early in the spring and are very common in this area.<\/p>\n

\"Eastern
Eastern Forktail Damselfly<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n
\nAmerican bullfrogs were lounging on the edges of the water and would disappear with a loud plop as I approached. Bullfrogs can be distinguished from green frogs by the ridge that runs from behind their eye. In bullfrogs, this ridge curves down over their ears.<\/p>\n
\"American
American bullfrog<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Painted turtles were sunning themselves, one next to the other.<\/p>\n

\"Painted
Painted turtles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Red-eared sliders, with the spot of red just behind their eyes, were also out. Sliders can get much larger than painted turtles. For comparison, there is a painted turtle on the very right in the photo below.<\/p>\n

\"Red-eared
Red-eared sliders and one painted turtle (right)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As I was taking photos of those turtles, I almost failed to notice a monstrous snapping turtle wading toward me, with only its face above water. This turtle was much larger than even the red-eared sliders.<\/p>\n

\"Snapping
Snapping turtle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another visitor told me that she has seen a man feed this turtle baloney and so it is almost tame. Even so, I decided not to take my chances and gave it some distance.<\/p>\n

The kind visitor also pointed me to four baby goslings who were foraging with their protective parents about fifty feet from the water.<\/p>\n

\"Two
Canada geese goslings<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A double-crested cormorant sunned itself on a rock. Later in the morning, I saw this bird fly laps around the lake. I don’t know if it was looking for another resting spot or for a meal.<\/p>\n

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

I walked the avenues and paths of the cemetery looking for birds. Here’s a white-breasted nuthatch in an oak tree.<\/p>\n

\"White-breasted
White-breasted nuthatch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The only warbler I found was this yellow-rumped warbler. According to The Daily Bird<\/a>, the high pressure system in our area has resulted in unfavorable northerly winds for warbler migration.<\/p>\n

\"Yellow-rumped
Yellow-rumped warbler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I saw five chipping sparrows in three different areas and, surprisingly, no house sparrows.<\/p>\n

\"Chipping
Chipping sparrow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Finally, this pair of brown-headed cowbirds was dawdling behind a flock of starlings. Cowbirds always look so serious.<\/p>\n

\"Male
Cowbirds (male on the left and female on the right)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was the last in a long streak of sunny and dry days in Boston. I visited Forest Hills Cemetery to see what I could find. I saw this eastern forktail damselfly resting on a reed at the edge 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":[164,165,58,190,168,64,124,161,105,162,160,163,86,493,166,119,120,167,123,106,122],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1389,"href":"https:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions\/1389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}