April 30, 2007 by OrientSee.

This Snowy Egret was in mid-leap for a fish. He is truly a kung fu master. The crane school of kung fu found its inspiration here. This bird covered twenty feet in a single leap to grab its prey. (My camera has a motor drive that made this image possible.) His agility and speed were amazing. I spent a half hour watching this one bird. I also found the hidden path to the secret pond. Kung Fu Mystery Theater. The reeds at Belle Isle hide several large ponds. They are a pain to find because of the phragmites. Banging through the reeds in knee deep water is very much like some scenes in The African Queen. However, there are a few paths if you can find them. Today, I found the way to the biggest pond. I have a semi-serious suggestion that we build a meditation platform by the pond to watch the birds and learn the right way to peace and harmony. The pond is just the place to learn these lessons.

Ciao!

-Jorge

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April 29, 2007 by OrientSee.

This is the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Wells, Maine. It’s sort of a revelation to a city boy. Here’s a marsh without plastic bags snagged in the trees, large jet aircraft flying overhead or packs of dogs on the run. Mind you now that Belle Isle is a special place for me but this is seeing Belle Isle a hundred years ago. It’s visiting a cathedral after being used to a church that sits a hundred people. I plan to make a pilgrimage again this summer just to visit this marsh. We were up in Maine to spend a few days in an inn. The service was wonderful and the food was an instructive sermon on the dangers of gluttony. I have never had such a wonderful meal but it was a sensory overload. Today, I got to see my first Great Blue Heron of the season and my first ever meadowlark (thanks, Soheil) back here. It too was a delight.

Ciao!

-Jorge

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April 25, 2007 by OrientSee.

This is full and positive proof that spring has arrived. Although our magnolia isn’t on Commonwealth Ave., it does stand in our yard and delights us and everyone who looks up on their way to the station. The contrast with the thickets surrounding the marsh couldn’t be more striking. Some sort of thorn bush attacked me this morning and tried to drain the blood out of one of my fingers. It wasn’t pretty to look at and the amount of blood was seriously offputting. This thorn psycho actually laughed after I suffered its unprovoked attack (well, not really but it was one mean plant). The other thing about wild plants is that they are wild. That means growing up, under, around, over and through other growing things. Push and shove. Whatever it takes. The resulting plant chaos is overwhelming to anything larger than a sparrow. A bulldozer would have its work cut out for it. So our calm cultivated magnolia is enjoyable while those marshy thickets are kind of scary.

Ciao!

-Jorge (who will be gone for a few days)

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April 24, 2007 by OrientSee.

Life’s tough when the people you live with are just strangling you. The vines that are climbing up this tree have wound themselves so tightly that even after they have died, you can see the rope burns on the trunk. I’m not used to thinking of the vegetative community as being so aggressive and vicious. The big thing today at the marsh was sound. You can hear the wingtip vortices of the big jets, the pheasant calling and the splash of the ducks as they land in a pool. All this with the sound of the city, cars and subway cars, going on. The red wing blackbirds, the cardinal and the crows all have their say. Today, I was watching a flock of white throated sparrows feeding. They were scruffling about in the leaf litter beneath a tree. I was hearing the neighborhood kids kick through the piles of leaves in the fall. I was seeing small birds looking for bugs. If you stand still, there’s quite a world to hear.

Ciao!

-Jorge

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April 23, 2007 by OrientSee.

Even in the best of families there can be rough spots. Today under the noon moon ( why does no one notice that the moon shines during the day? ), the osprey platform at the T yard had two ospreys but they were hassling each other and finally they broke up and flew off. One went off towards the airport. The other started circling around and I followed with my lens and then I realized that he was flying towards me and then overhead. With my head and back arched over, I clicked furiously and got this image. I am guilty of telling people how beautiful the obvious is over and over but this is just such a kick to see so beautiful a bird so close.

Ciao!

-Jorge

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April 22, 2007 by OrientSee.

Yesterday, it was all about the showboats, great egrets. Today, this little guy just stopped and posed for me. He was very neighborly. There wasn’t much of that in the marsh today. Two red-tailed hawks took a fancy to the osprey platform at the T yard. They were both on it together when the osprey showed up and dive bombed them until the hawks gave it up and flew off. It took a while before the osprey convinced them to leave. All this was going while the egrets were busy spear fishing with their long yellow bills. It was a fun day in the urban wild.

Ciao!

-Jorge

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April 21, 2007 by OrientSee.

This is a showboat. It’s a Great Egret and already in breeding plumage. Two of them were resting behind the Orient Heights T train yard. They weren’t bothered by me. I just sat and enjoyed the show. It is easy to see why they were hunted for their feathers. I told one of the neighborhood little kids about the bird and she was shocked to hear about a bird as tall as herself. Then she remembered seeing a bird like this on tv, the power of nature shows. It is a gorgeous day and by tomorrow all our magnolia buds will be opened. That will be a floral showboat.

Ciao!

-Jorge

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April 20, 2007 by OrientSee.

This is a disturbing picture but think about it. Why? We seldom see dead wildlife except as roadkill. So what happens to them all? When you do see a dead animal, you are surprised. It’s like some one removes the offensive evidence so we don’t have to see it. This isn’t a beautiful picture and the subject is obviously dead. Yet, the marsh is crawling with animals and birds and this is the first time in months that I have seen anything dead except for leaves.  I was mildly horrified to find this dead goose but I shouldn’t have been. It’s what happens to us all. It just got me thinking.

Ciao!

-Jorge

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April 19, 2007 by OrientSee.

On the way out to the MarshHenge outlook, there are several standing pools, 8 - 10 inches deep, that the path traverses. Today the pools are less deep but covered with little bubbles and patches of oil slick.  The slicks puzzle me. It’s too far for the average slob to go to dump oil. All kinds of construction waste and debris get dumped on the margins of the marsh (less nowadays than it used to be) but no one walks several hundred yards just to dump a quart of oil. That’s too much work. I don’t know of any natural source. That leaves our favorite bad neighbor, Logan Airport. With the amount of traffic that passes overhead, it is likely that some leak and even a little bit will settle to the ground. Nasty stuff but in this case, it is actually quite striking.

Ciao!

-Jorge

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April 18, 2007 by OrientSee.

The weather is still nasty but going out was more tantalizing. The continuing flux of northeast winds and moisture have damped everything down with shades of gray and the constant growling of the wind. The marsh has a very limited color palette right now, mostly shades of dry vegetation, straw yellows mostly. The addition of water has changed that. The wetness has soaked into everything and suddenly these vivid colors leap into your eyes. This is a dead branch which I have walked by dozens of times in the last few months. I never paid it any attention. Now it’s wet and the red scale screams out. The intensity is magnified by the drab bark beneath. Nearby by some trees turned iridescent green and others got red splotched bark that looked like the hide of an alien carnivore. So a dull walk turned into a delight.

Ciao!

-Jorge

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