The Urban Pantheist

I canceled February's walk on account of we had more snow on the ground than any other time in history, and I didn't feel like walking through it more than I already was. We had a fair amount of melt in late March, and I was feeling good about seeing what creatures were out on the last Sunday of the month. Then on the Saturday before, it snowed again. In the Blue Hills, where the walk was planned, they got about 3 more inches. A friend and once-frequent Urban Nature Walker was going to be working at a maple sugar festival at Brookwood Farm in the Blue Hills, so that's where we went.

Above you can see the grounds of Houghton's Pond Recreation Area, complete with fresh blanket of snow and incongruent obsolete technology. We parked here and took a shuttle bus to the farm.



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On Sunday I finally got off my sedentary suburban backside and took Charlie to a new hiking place. We ended up at Fowl Meadow, part of the Blue Hills Reservation.

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Alexis and I on either side of an Amanita mushroom in Cutler Park.

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New England is just so goddamn beautiful. Sometimes you have to catch it early when it's still sleepy.




This male house finch appears to be unwell, the only reason I was able to get a decent picture of him. They aren't native to New England, but people seem to like them pretty well anyway. This one might have conjunctivitis--a lot of them get this, often from dirty birdfeeders.

Actually, it was more than just Charlie, but you'd hardly know it from my pictures. Can I help it that he's so photogenic and that I love him so? Cutler Park (click tag for many past adventures) is a big ol' swamp along the Charles River and Route 95/128. Awesome boardwalks.



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Photographs by cottonmanifesto. Location: Ward's Pond, Olmsted Park, Boston.
Urban species #047: Cattail Typha latifolia

Cattail is a marsh plant equally at home in the shallow water around a pond or in a drainage ditch. In urban environments, it may play a major role in reducing water pollutants. In some places, however, cattail is seen as an undesirable weed, encouraged to grow by an excess of nutrients. In ecologically sensitive places like the everglades, cattail creates thickets that reduce biodiversity. In other places, cattail is hated because it harbors crop pests like blackbirds.

In Boston, one of the great values of cattail is that it provides habitat for red-winged blackbirds. Other birds, rare and diminishing species like bitterns and rails also favor cattail marsh. In the east, cattail is threatened by the encroachment of purple loosestrife. This attractive but invasive plant grows in the same kind of shallow waters as cattail, but does not provide habitat for birds or food for most native insects. Phragmites reeds can also outcompete cattail in urban areas.

Cattail has a long history of human use. Different parts of the plant are edible and available throughout the year. Flour can be obtained from the starchy rhizome. The downy seeds were formerly used as stuffing for life vests and pillows, and the seed heads can be dipped in tallow and used as torches. The long leaves can be woven into various crafts.

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