D.W.Field Park After a Winter Nor'easter

Three nor'easters in two weeks.  Thirty-six hours without power, and the majestic fall of a healthy, massive black oak across our backyard after the first.  Blizzard conditions and over a foot* of heavy snow during the third.  Two (more) days out of school. 

But there are compensations.

Last Wednesday, March 14th, I slung my snowshoes on my back and ventured into D.W.Field Park, Brockton in the bright sunshine.  It turned out to be already plowed.  (I am informed that Mr. Field made sure his park has an independent budget.)  I walked the middle (and arguably prettiest) section of the park, seldom needing to wade through the snow, and only putting on my snowshoes to negotiate a quarter-mile-long causeway that connected the outgoing road to the incoming one.  Melting snow and ice falling from the trees made me glad of my broad-brimmed hat.  It was gorgeous.

Upper Porter Pond

Low hill beside Waldo Lake

Walking around Waldo Lake

 Looks like Waldo Lake has muskrats!

 Gray birch adorned with ice ornaments.

 Mallards, Canada geese, ring-necked ducks, and gulls.  (See anything else?  I'm a very poor birder!)

 Ring-billed gull.  (Only just discovered I'd been mistaken in calling these herring gulls!)

More of Waldo Lake

Crossing Waldo Lake on the causeway--my only time on snowshoes (so far) this winter.

You could be forgiven for thinking me obsessed with water and islands (which I am); evidently the Park's designer was, too!  (Toward the left is approximately northwest.)

*Impossible to be sure how much more--it blew and drifted so much.

Chimney swifts are back in town!

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3710/8968996135_38bc24e921_z.jpg

I first heard their rapid, chittering calls as they zoomed their aerobics above me yesterday, May 14.  They are "late" this year: the last two years I noticed them first on May 11.  (Perhaps they were here a day or two ago, but were subdued by all the overcast and rain.)  Always they seem to be in flight, chasing insects on the wing--I never see them perch.  They are a cheerful ornament to spring, here.

Chimney swifts are long-distance migrants, coming all the way from South America.  They are so called because these days they nest almost exclusively in chimneys--which is harder and harder to do since many homeowners today cap them.  (Long ago, they nested in cavities in trees, but natural cavities that meet their needs are rare today.)



Learn more about them from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, my chief go-to site on birds and bird song.

Rob Curtis, WordsonBirds.blogspot.com