Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Walking home from the supermarket, I saw a group of three turkeys--two adults and one poult--and then, half a block away, a single male turkey.

I reported them to the Massachusetts wild turkey survey.

We were seeing a larger flock regularly a couple of months ago, before some of them paired off, nested, and settled down to the business of making more turkeys.

I kept not thinking of the wild turkey survey in early June, when I was seeing more turkeys. They are asking people to report sightings from June 1 through August 31, and the serious Turkey Awareness Month* was may.

*At least some of the early-morning gobbling was aimed at each other, rather than at humans, of course.

This afternoon's weather was the kind I like best*, so cattitude and I walked around Mount Auburn Cemetery, taking the bus to get there. I didn't walk as much as I would have liked, because my feet hurt, but we saw some very fine trees, as well as a heron, a groundhog, and some dragonflies.

I'm not entirely over my cough, but it feels like the antibiotics are doing their job.

*74 Fahrenheit (23 C), sunny, not very humid

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.

cattitude and I got up very early this morning and walked over to the Alewife Reservation to look at (or at least for) birds and frogs, and listen to the dawn chorus. This was my idea, in conversation on our way home yesterday: I suggested that it might be fun, but maybe later in summer when sunrise is later. He mentioned that he is often up around dawn these days, so we agreed that if he was up anyway, and wanted to go for a walk, he would wake me gently by calling my name.

We pulled on clothes at about a quarter to five, and walked down the bikeway; unusually, we saw no cyclists, though one pedestrian passed us, looking as though he was hurrying to catch the first or second subway train of the morning.

We heard more birds and frogs than we saw: the ones we heard included what sounded like two or three large bullfrogs. I spotted one large frog, lying on the surface of the water with all its legs spread, near enough to us that I could see some yellow on its body as well as the green; Cattitude found a few that were either sitting on lily pads or doing their best imitations of random lump of vegetation.

The sun rose while we were on one of the paths in the Alewife Reservation, that first blaze of orange on the horizon. *smile*

We heard some familiar birds—red-winged blackbirds, mallards, a cardinal, grackles—and some birdsongs neither of us recognized. We also saw swallows (in the air, of course) and what might have been wrens or warblers, tiny birds on the path some distance away. My immediate thought when Cattitude pointed them out was sanderlings (sandpipers), but the Alewife Reservation is a freshwater wetland, not a tidal marsh or mudflat.

On the way back I got a glimpse of a heron, flying up and curving away from the path as we approached. (It looked white enough that it might have been an egret, but a great blue heron is more likely based on what we've been seeing around there, and the dawn light can do odd things to color.)

We also saw several rabbits, of which there are a lot living around here, and one chipmunk. No muskrat—the last time we were over there we got a good look at one swimming near the surface of the water, biting off a lily pad and taking it away somewhere, presumably to its den.

That was a lot of fun, but may not have been prudent, because I got about hours' sleep last night. We tried going back to bed when we got home, and I dozed a while but didn't really get back to sleep.

I got up again around 7:30, had tea and breakfast, and then went out again to do some gardening before it got hot. "Gardening" in this case means looking at what's currently growing there, and quite a bit of weeding. We have three sunflower plants (I'd only been sure of two), but no flowers left, and the cucumber is being enthusiastic enough that I'm trying to figure out how much I can reasonably cut the roses back to make room for it.

After what seems like a very slow start, the forsythia bushes in our neighborhood now have lots of flowers open. (It has been sunny for the last several days, and very warm yesterday and today—I think today's high was something like 81F/27C, and tomorrow is forecast to be even warmer.) This feels late to me, but I'm not sure whether this is just not being used to living in Massachusetts, or that it feels vaguely out of order, in that the daffodils in front of the house have been blooming for a couple of weeks.

The nearby garden center now has six-packs of lettuce plants, and some potted herbs. I bought some potting soil today, to use with the seeds I started a few days ago, while trying not to worry about the likelihood that I should have started my seeds sooner than I did. (The seeds are currently in little disks of peat moss, just starting to sprout, and I am going to need to move at least the tomatoes into slightly larger pots before planting them outside.)

We also have enthusiastic cardinals singing in trees nearby; last summer we had at least one fine brood of cardinal fledglings darting across the yard.

adrian_turtle, cattitude and I went for a delightful walk today. Yesterday I'd figured we would need to get out in the morning in order to avoid the rain; that turned out not to be true, but by the time we realized that Adrian was over here, and Cattitude and I were ready to head out, for what turned out to be a couple of hours in the sunshine. (It was mid-60s F (18 C) when we went out, very good walking weather.)

I wanted to head south on Lake Street and explore a little I hadn't done before; the two of them worked out a route while I was tediously renewing my prescriptions. (Rite Aid's system is a lot more efficient than Walgreen's, in case you're trying to decide between those two chains.)

We walked down Lake Street past Route 2 into Belmont, and revised our plans when it transpired that Google Maps had tried to guide us onto the highway. The streets in that bit of Belmont are curved around Little Pond. We found the unpaved, very pleasant access route from the street to the pond, and spent some time looking at the water. That bit of woods is mostly conifer, so we were walking on dried pine needles. The other pleasant surprise in Belmont was some late, very fragrant honeysuckle blossoms: I smelled them before I saw them, which is unusual. (I like honeysuckle, but not as much as Cattitude does.)

After Little Pond we found the Fitchburg Cutoff Path, which connects to the Minuteman Bikeway at Alewife Brook T station. There's a boardwalk leading from that path into a delightful constructed wetland, built for storm water management. In among the water lily pads, we saw several frogs, the first Cattitude or I had seen in the wild in years. (There is, alas, a worldwide amphibian shortage.) First Cattitude spotted two fairly small frogs sitting on lily pads (not jewel-colored tree frog small, but small), and then Adrian saw a much larger one swimming below the surface. We spent quite a while watching the frogs sit, swim, and even hop, and then walked a little further and saw more frogs, including another large one. There were also dragonflies and a goldfinch and a wood duck, all of which are good, and all of which we had seen in the area earlier in the summer (okay, we probably hadn't seen these dragonflies before, though the goldfinch or duck might be one of the ones we'd seen in August).

We eventually decided that lunch would be a good idea, walked the last bit to the T station, and went to Central Square for lamb shank, pumpkin kibby, and then ice cream and tea.

A pair of cardinals built a nest in a tree near our backyard, and for the last couple of weeks, we've been enjoying watching and listening to both the parents and the fledglings. cattitude has seen more than I have, because I was in Montreal for some of their early flights.

Today, I stood on the porch watching the cardinals while doing one of my exercises. A lot of what I'm doing involves using a doorframe to hold the exercise elastics, but a few of my exercises can be done standing anywhere, and one just requires a step. (I did some of those while waiting for the last person on my bus to clear U.S. Customs on Tuesday.)

( some exercise numbers from yesterday and today )

Monday afternoon I went to the Bronx Zoo by myself: it was a gray, chilly day, and as I was walking from the bus to the zoo entrance it started to snow.

There were very few people there. I spent a long time at the tiger exhibit, which I had largely to myself. There are few things cuter than two tigers curled up next to each other on the same rock, but a third tiger trying to insinuate itself between them qualifies. (The zoo currently has four Siberian tigers: three year-old cubs and their mother.)

I also looked at the white-naped cranes, one of which was sitting on a nest; bison (11, all lying down in the more visible front part of their enclosure); and the Pere David deer. Relatively few animals were out, and I didn't stay very long, but it was a nice outing.

Today, cattitude and I went to the zoo together. It was bright and sunny, and significantly warmer, so a lot more animals were out and about; between that and spring break for the local schools, the zoo was also a lot more crowded (though nothing like as full as in summer, or even a weekend in May). On the way in, we asked if the okapis were out, and the cashier told us that it's still too cold, maybe next week.

Since what I'd wanted to see today was basically "Monday plus okapis," I went back to a lot of the same exhibits.

The tigers weren't as active, or as cute, as they had been on Monday, but they were well worth watching, and looked even better in the sunlight. On Monday I took some pictures with my iPod, but suspect none of them are worth trying to massage; today I brought my camera, but haven't copied the photos to this computer. There were a couple of dozen other people at the tiger exhibit today, but still few enough that we got a good look and I didn't feel as though I was being selfish for staying there as long as I wanted.

The cranes were even more fun than on Monday: we spent a while there watching them (and a muskrat on the bank), went across to the snow leopards, and then came back. On our second visit the female crane got up long enough that we could see that she is sitting on two eggs; she rearranged them and the straw around them slightly, then folded herself up again, beak resting on her back.

We also had fun watching the rhinos (in what used to be the elephant enclosure next to Zoo Center).

Sometime in the past four days, a flock of red-winged blackbirds have arrived, and are singing loudly in the trees and shrubs next to the Northern Ponds waterfowl exhibit. There are also a lot of wood ducks this spring.

cattitude and I went to the Bronx Zoo today: it was pleasantly cool and damp and not very crowded when we got there around 1 p.m., and pleasantly warm and sunny by the time we left.

( chipmunks, okapi, and gawky adolescent birds )

We have seen the legendary wild parrots of Brooklyn, and I can put them on my lifelist!

More important, cattitude and I have spent a good afternoon with roadnotes and baldanders, drinking tea and nibbling chocolate and olives and cheese and ginger snaps and talking about musical theater and health stuff and life and people. The subway was being a bit difficult (no D along the section that would have been useful to us, no L ditto), and I had to climb stairs at Roadnotes and Baldanders's station, but we are home now, and the L not being available led to us getting a well-timed dinner at a diner on University Place in the Village, so that's all right.

The legendary wild parrots are an established feral population of monk parakeets; the ones we saw are living in Greenwood Cemetery and in an electrical substation across the street from the cemetery. The cemetery for the usual appeal of trees and grass, and the electrical substation is warm year-round, and has flat surfaces they can build nests on. (There are a few other groups of these birds elsewhere in and near New York City—and 100,000 or so in Florida. They are native to the Caribbean, and this climate is marginal at best for them if they don't find an electrical substation or, I suppose, a poorly insulated rooftop.)