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cattitudeand I went over to Alewife to do some birding today. This was the first time I'd been there since I had cataract surgery, and I am so glad to be able to see well enough that birding (and looking for frogs and such) is fun again, rather than frustrating. We started just outside the Russell Field exit of the T station, with a Great blue heron nest Cattitude had seen about ten days ago. He brought a camera today mostly in the hope of photos of nestling herons; someone came past while he was pointing his camera at it, and asked if we knew what kind of birds those were. She then said she'd been walking past and trying to figure it out; I remarked that I thought this was the first time we'd been asked that since we left Inwood, when it happened fairly often (because people had gotten used to seeing us bird-watching). I only spotted two birds; Cattitude, looking through the camera's good birding lens, saw three, so at least one young heron.
Then we walked around Alewife Reservation, slowly and carefully; slowly because of recent hip and knee pain, but we would have stopped frequently in any case, to look at, or for, things. We saw a good variety of birds, including red-winged blackbirds, a flicker, grackles, Canada geese (two adults plus goslings), I think a song sparrow, and of course a few mallards. One of the red-winged blackbirds landed on a railing, near where two people were sitting; hopped toward them and looked meaningfully at something they were eating; and then flew under the bench to pick up crumbs. I am used to mallards, geese, and gulls being that tame, but hadn't seen red-winged blackbirds do that, though I know they can be bold, having once gotten closer to a nest than the birds liked.
We also saw several turtles, a few frogs (I mostly took Cattitude's word that those dark lumps in the water were frogs, rather than rocks or carvings of trilobites), and flowers. Lilac season isn't quite over, and I think I smelled lily of the valley while we were walking through Alewife reservation, as well as the fine patch we stopped to sniff while walking along Highland Avenue to the bus stop.
I think I found a good balance between having fun, and turning back when I needed to; both my hips and then my left knee were sore by the time we got down to the train platform, but resting quietly at home helped a lot. I have since done a few of my PT exercises, and didn't feel the need for acetominophen to supplement the naproxen (NSAID) I took before we headed out.
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I had some kind of weird hip issue earlier this season, but birding was just right for it, since walking rapidly isn't really what you want to do when looking for birds. We picked a known hotspot for warblers that also happens to contain mostly flat terrain and have lots of benches, and I suppose I should write that up while I remember enough about it.
P.
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That sounds like an excellent choice of birding location.
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We are very lucky to have that birding location. It's a Richfield city park called Wood Lake, about 150 acres of marsh, lake, and woods. You can hear the traffic on 35W from everywhere in the little park despite sound barriers, but migrant warblers just want a place to rest, and it provides every amenity they require.
P.
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