The Urban Pantheist

The last few weekends I've been visiting my dad out in the Western part of New England. This past weekend we walked in the rain at the Fannie Stebbins Wildlife Reserve in Longmeadow Massachusetts.
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It's sometimes hard to believe that Canada geese Branta canadensis were, for a time, rare--endangered. Now they are common to the point of being considered a nuisance. Historically they are migrants, breeding far north of New England and migrating to the southern states in winter. Reintroductions of captive birds and changes to the landscapes--including year-round urban feeding--have resulted in a population that migrates shorter distances, or not at all.


In recent decades Canada geese have taken to breeding in New England. They are ecologically an alien invasive in our habitat, but enjoy the protections that all native bird species do. Many facilities and municipalities get special permits to disrupt goose breeding to keep populations down.

So as I was on my 2 mile walk, I passed this dam on Mother Brook. Mother Brook, as I may have blogged before, was the first man-made canal in New England. It was cut between the Charles and Neponset Rivers, for the purpose of making waterfalls like this one to turn waterwheels.


The wheels and mills are gone, but the dams remain.


The partially ruined beauty of the human hand on the New England landscape.

Here we are, your 2014 Zoo Crew! This is the largest group we've assembled for a 25 mile ride yet. Ours was also the team that raised the most money for the scholarship (thanks in no small measure to you wonderful people).

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My friends got a house and invited people over to warm it!
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A group of us from the New England Chapter of the American Association of Zoo Keepers went to visit Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence Rhode Island! Here is my vice president Sarah, modeling the "zookeeper in training" hat. A little small perhaps, but she found a shirt that fit.

( on to the animals! )

Tar spot fungus Rhytisma acerinum grows on a Norway maple Acer platanoides leaf.

Forgive me for not presenting a picture of Norway maple in full. Any wide angle photo of my yard is likely to feature them, and you can click the Norway maple link to see dozens of photos of this common naturalized alien. Norway maple is an attractive shade tree well suited to the city and suburbs. It is also a pernicious invasive species, threatening to invade our forests and transform them into barren monocultures. I have cut down all the Norways small enough to yield to hand tools, but several large specimens still dominate the property. The small ones cut down in spring have sprouted fully viable shoots of leaves, and if I didn't continually strip them they would come right back to be giant trees.

Another risk presented by Norway maples is its susceptibility to tar spot, a parasitic fungus that affects only maple trees. It causes no great harm, but can ruin the appearance of foliage (a major part of the New England tourist industry) and potentially weaken vulnerable trees. Norways are so common and so frequently infected, that they must be spreading this fungus to native trees; no alarm has been called, to my knowledge, but we shall see what the next few years brings us.

Here's a fellow zookeeper and I in traffic on 93 on the way back from the Gilmour Bike Ride. Thanks so much to those of you who donated! I was mopey at first, but got quite a few donations and I'm honored by your generosity. The money goes to a terrific scholarship program; most of the riders on my team are scholarship recipients.

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When I went up to Drumlin to give my mushroom walk and talk yesterday (which cost each participant about the same as a membership to the Boston Mycological Club) I stopped by the Audubon Shop, and discovered a new mushroom book! It's called Fascinating Fungi of New England. There are two things great about that: first, it's specific to New England, and so limits itself to species found here (although anyone east of the Rockies can make perfect use of it); and second, it's not "Edible and Poisonous Fungi of New England," no, the adjective is FASCINATING. Now that's an approach to natural history I can get behind. Nothing against the wild food foragers, but that ain't why I go outside, and I mostly stick to the raspberries anyway.

I've only flipped through it a bit, but I can honestly say that it feels like a book I would have liked to have written. The text covers the natural history of each species, focusing on what makes the mushroom in question interesting, beyond whether it can kill you or if it's nice in an omelette.


Gotta love seeing the urban mushroom species, the winecap, on the cover!

As it turns out, the author is going to be at Drumlin Farm on October first (that's this Saturday) to do a book signing and mushroom walk! For the cost of my field walk, or the BMC membership, you could buy the book and attend the walk--you get a few bucks off if you are a Mass Audubon member, which you should be.

Fine print: I don't get anything from publicizing this event, I just figured some of you would be into it. Also I genuinely like the book, and it's very reasonably priced