Entries tagged with roxbury puddingstone

Current Music: Jungle Brothers - Feelin' Alright

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Fall walks, part four: Urban Nature Walk in Franklin Park

I decided on a bit of a whim to do an Urban Nature Walk in Franklin Park. I took Charlie. We met one other walk participant there. I was there to find mushroom species for the Franklin Park Biodiversity Project.

( many more pics )

Current Music: The Ting Tings - Shut Up and Let Me Go

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Urban Nature Walk preview

I know I told you folks that I would try to keep you in the loop a little better, when it comes to Urban Nature Walks. Well, I'm going to keep to a schedule of every last Sunday of each month. So that means a week from tomorrow is the next one. This would be a lot simpler if you just joined the facebook group: /www.facebook.com/groups/UrbanNatureWalk/
EDITED TO ADD: please let me know if you are signing up! I have to approve it, and I'm trying to avoid phishing schemes. Thanks, Chris!

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3:00 snapshot #1179 plus bonus folly

Yesterday's lean cold sun heading down.

One of two puddingstone follies in the zoo.

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Urban Nature Pictures 9/6

Moss and lichen growth on a picnic table in Franklin Park.

A puddingstone boulder (a glacial erratic, or a boulder left over from quarrying operations?) in the woods of Franlin Park.

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Urban Nature Pictures 4/10

Moss.

Alternate title: Unidentified structures on some moss growing on a puddingstone outcropping on Schoolmaster hill in Franklin Park. This was one of two pictures I took during yesterday's Urban Nature Walk. Here's the other:

I'm looking forward to Alexis' pictures from the walk.

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Urban Nature Pictures 4/4

Chickweed. Stellina sp.

( It was a nice day so I was out for a long time taking lots of pictures! )

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Urban Nature Pictures 3/27: Allandale Woods Urban Wilds

Boston has a category of public land called "Urban Wilds." By expanding the range of landscape experiences beyond that of the dense built environment and manicured Boston parkland, urban wilds form an essential part of the city's open space system. The only one of these that I am aware we have been to is Belle Isle Marsh. Yesterday we went to Allandale Woods. We've passed it dozens of times, and one day Alex wondered aloud "what are those woods?" I found them on the map and found the somewhat concealed parking area.

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Urban Nature Pictures day 19

Icicle on moss on a rock wall in Franklin Park.

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3 out of 4 trips to Hammond Pond are on rainy days.

Here's Alexis navigating a slippery puddingstone ledge.

( Mostly lichens, moss, and rocks. )

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Hammond Pond Reservation, on a cold colorless morning

Winter conditions (let's be honest) make us look harder for the beauty and life. We stumbled upon a whole row of witch hazels that we had no idea were there. Since these are blooming in the fall, there's a good chance they are the native plant American Witch-hazel Hamamelis virginiana. (Putting that Sibley book to use right away.)

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Nice day for a walk--and a swim

So it was so warm we decided to walk to Ward's Pond and let Charlie have a swim. It was very windy and here Alexis is surrounded by blowing leaves.

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Hammond Pond Reservation, this time not in the rain

This Sunday we went to Hammond Pond Reservation not on a rainy day, but instead on one of the most beautiful New England days possible.

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Hammond Pond Reservation, in the rain, yet again

We've been to this place twice, both times in weather in which most people wouldn't walk around the block. Yesterday: about 40 degrees, cold drizzle.

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Urban Nature Walk: Franklin Park Wilderness

Last Sunday there was an Urban Nature Walk in section of Franklin Park called "the Wilderness." It's a wooded puddingstone hill, originally intended as a place where city dwellers could experience what it looked like in the area before European Settlement. Here Pete has climbed a puddingstone ledge.

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Images of the Fenway in February

The Fens are former salt marsh in the center of what is now Boston. Cut off from the ocean by a dam across the Charles River, protected and landscaped by city fathers and Edward Law Olmsted, it's a quiet swamp park surrounded by museums, universities, busy neighborhoods, and the nation's oldest ball park. The Muddy River winds slowly through it.

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Forest Hills Cemetery

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shades of gray

Squirrel, tree, lichen, puddingstone, Franklin Park.

On this day in 365 Urban Species: Curly dock, as pictured from Puddingstone Park on Mission Hill.

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Balanced rocks in the Fenway

For those of you who are not Bostonians or otherwise in the know, the Fenway is the name of a city park (and the road that runs along it). The Muddy River winds through the Fenway before meeting the Charles. There's a famous baseball field nearby. On Sunday I balanced some rocks on one of the many puddingstone bridges in the park.

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Franklin Park, in too many pictures

We walked the dogs in the weird landscape of Franklin Park yesterday.

( 17 more pictures?! )

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Franklin Park, Boston, part two.

...Continued from my last post.

Despite being located in Boston's dense residential neighborhoods, some parts of Franklin Park seem quite wild. Puddingstone boulders dot the landscape.

( several more pictures )