Store cat

Look out, friends list--It's Monday, time for all my pictures to come atcha!



Ritual Arts has a new store cat.

Stick insect

I found this guy (actually, I think it's a female) on the train tracks in Lincoln.

Fall in Boston, Fall hard.

Olmsted Park and the Riverway, this Sunday.



Between Willow and Spring Ponds, Olmsted Park.

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Brighton Skunk

This isn't a great photograph, but I had to share. This is in my coworker's yard, on a street behind Commonwealth Avenue in Brighton, Mass. I wanted to get closer, but, you know.

365 Urban Species. #302: Ruddy Duck

Photos by cottonmanifesto

Urban species #302: Ruddy duck Oxyura jamaicensis

Yesterday, we spotted our first winter duck on Leverett Pond. Leverett Pond is a widening of the muddy river between Boston and Brookline, in Olmsted Park. Because of its width, and the fact that it is fed by relatively warm, salty, and polluted water from storm drains and street runoff, Leverett Pond never fully freezes. Many different duck species converge there in wintertime, having left summer breeding places in Canada. Some ducks are only there for a few days or weeks, leaving to find better food resources, less crowded water, or fewer human disturbances, but many come in fall and stay until early spring. The ruddy ducks are usually there for a few months.

Ruddy ducks are small diving ducks with distinctive upturned tails. Their name comes from the male's reddish breeding plumage. As the male's feathers get ruddy, his bill gets blue, a feature that our duck is hiding from us here. You'll have to go peek at someone else's site to see that. Ruddy ducks dive under the water to catch insect larvae and mollusks, and to graze on aquatic plants. This duck species has been introduced to Britain, where it hybridizes with the closely related, and endangered, white-headed duck (O. leucocephala).