Urban Nature Walk -- South Boston
Jan. 18th, 2005 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
urbpanThis past Sunday we had an Urban Nature Walk along the beach in South Boston. We met at Nicole's house for coffee and set out to the beach, working our way out to Castle Island. I was frankly not expecting much in the way of wildlife, and I was happy to be wrong. We all had a great time (despite the biting cold) and Alexis took a whole mess of great pictures. These pictures will essentially be the next zine (with some not used because they won't reproduce well, and some I didn't use for this narrative added as well), with some writing (more than what I have here.)
29 pictures to follow the cut.
We first met Alex at Copley, to get the bus to Nicole's house. While we waited, we enjoyed the urban birds.
We had coffee and waited for everyone to show up. (This is the only picture of the set that I took, the rest Alexis took.)
We made our way to the beach; the tide was out a little, and the uneven sand and gravel created some tide pools.
Like any urban area, there was junk and garbage.
We examined the variety of different shells on the beach--this artificial beach was created in 1919, so any life on it has come in to colonize it in the past 85 years. We found the shells of blue mussels, quahogs, scallops, oysters, dogwinkles, and many razor clams. Living periwinkles were in the shallow tidal mud, grazing algae, and barnacles waited for the plankton-filled ocean to cover them at high tide.
We made our way to the walkway out to Castle Island. Castle Island was connected to the South Boston peninsula in the 19th century, and later a circular promenade was built, enclosing a chunk of Boston Harbor they named "Pleasure Bay." The paved promenade is used by the gulls to open mussels: They drop them from a height, bursting them open and eating the tasty orange meat. Unfortunately, the Urban Nature Walk zine is in black and white.
Halfway to Castle Island is an old Coast Guard signal light ("Navigation Aid") encircled by odd concrete structures.
We saw many different waterfowl from on the promenade: buffleheads, mergansers, goldeneyes, and the largest ducks found in the area, eiders.
I had my first East Coast sighting of Brants, close relatives of our all too common Canada geese.
These structures are somehow related to controlling the water flow in and out of Pleasure Bay. They looked old and unused.
Looking back toward South Boston, a windsurfer braved the January wind and water against an industrial backdrop.
We got to Castle Island, and found a terrible smell. Some floating docks had been hauled out of the water, and the sessile mollusks that had attached themselves were dead and decomposing.
The ring-billed gulls were un-shy creatures, tolerating very close approaches. We decided to feed them in order to get some close-up shots.
Does anyone think any of the above images would work for a cover? I have an idea already, but Alexis doesn't agree. I'll reveal my idea after I collect some suggestions.
Almost all these pictures were already posted at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cottonmanifesto's journal.
29 pictures to follow the cut.
We first met Alex at Copley, to get the bus to Nicole's house. While we waited, we enjoyed the urban birds.
We had coffee and waited for everyone to show up. (This is the only picture of the set that I took, the rest Alexis took.)
We made our way to the beach; the tide was out a little, and the uneven sand and gravel created some tide pools.
Like any urban area, there was junk and garbage.
We examined the variety of different shells on the beach--this artificial beach was created in 1919, so any life on it has come in to colonize it in the past 85 years. We found the shells of blue mussels, quahogs, scallops, oysters, dogwinkles, and many razor clams. Living periwinkles were in the shallow tidal mud, grazing algae, and barnacles waited for the plankton-filled ocean to cover them at high tide.
We made our way to the walkway out to Castle Island. Castle Island was connected to the South Boston peninsula in the 19th century, and later a circular promenade was built, enclosing a chunk of Boston Harbor they named "Pleasure Bay." The paved promenade is used by the gulls to open mussels: They drop them from a height, bursting them open and eating the tasty orange meat. Unfortunately, the Urban Nature Walk zine is in black and white.
Halfway to Castle Island is an old Coast Guard signal light ("Navigation Aid") encircled by odd concrete structures.
We saw many different waterfowl from on the promenade: buffleheads, mergansers, goldeneyes, and the largest ducks found in the area, eiders.
I had my first East Coast sighting of Brants, close relatives of our all too common Canada geese.
These structures are somehow related to controlling the water flow in and out of Pleasure Bay. They looked old and unused.
Looking back toward South Boston, a windsurfer braved the January wind and water against an industrial backdrop.
We got to Castle Island, and found a terrible smell. Some floating docks had been hauled out of the water, and the sessile mollusks that had attached themselves were dead and decomposing.
The ring-billed gulls were un-shy creatures, tolerating very close approaches. We decided to feed them in order to get some close-up shots.
Does anyone think any of the above images would work for a cover? I have an idea already, but Alexis doesn't agree. I'll reveal my idea after I collect some suggestions.
Almost all these pictures were already posted at
cottonmanifesto's journal.
