A sizable group of hearty people (it was 18 degrees and windy!) joined the March Nature walk with The Trustees, exploring the various landscapes of Mary Cummings Park. We learned about the farmlands, most overgrown with invasive weed, the forests, and the wetlands. This was the first co-sponsored walk between the Friends of Mary Cummngs Park and The Trustees (of Reservations).
Ed Wilson welcomed the group and brought us up to date on the progress of Boston’s negotiations with The Trustees, which are moving along well.
Then Russell Hopping led the group on an informative walk from meadows to woods to wetlands.
Despite the snow, we had a great time rescuing a section of wall that was covered with dead trees and vines. We had a visitor who later donated a nice amount of money, and a fellow with a dog, who help clear the brush. (Both the dog AND the fellow helped clear the brush.) Stay tuned for more stone wall rescues as well as TREE rescues, where great old hardwoods are being attacked by invasive vines.
Andy Goldsworthy is a British sculptor and photography whose work has delighted and inspired people worldwide. He creates works that are temporary, out of leaves, stones, ice, and similar materials. You can read more about him in many places online and buy his incredible books on Amazon, among other places. He called his first book “A Collaboration with Nature”, which describes how he works.
We wondered if we could create temporary pieces inspired by his, pieces that would not affect the woods in any permanent way, and that would simply fade away with time. The gallery shows the little works we created on our December 3, 2016 walk.
So our December 3, 2016 Nature Walk was given over to making our own “Collaborations with Nature”. here were the “rules”.
Only use materials you find lying on the forest floor; no cutting down trees
People may work on their own or form teams
People can choose just to watch
We will photograph the results and post them on this site
This walk was rained out! After the driest summer in years, we got a good soaking on Saturday. We will reschedule Diana in the spring.
Our October Nature Walk will be a bird watching walk with expert Diana Fruguglietti. We will take a walk, exploring the varied habitats of the Mary Cummings Estate. Meeting Place: Parking lot on Blanchard Rd in Burlington. 10:00 – noon.
(Full disclosure: the lovely photo above of Diane was NOT taken at Mary Cummings Park, where we don’t have a sea of sunflowers, though we have many other delightful habitats.)
Diana spent her career working in the software industry as a Software Configuration Manager but in 2012 decided to pursue her true love of nature, animals, photography and travel. She has seen Mountain Gorillas in Uganda, Orangutans in Borneo, Tigers in India, Jaguars in Brazil, Penguins in Antarctica and most of the big animal species in Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda and Madagascar. Africa and Central and South America are her favorite areas to travel with Colombia being her favorite country.
Diana has been birding since 2002 and is on a quest to see as many species as possible throughout the world. She loves to travel and has been fortunate to have visited 51 countries thus far and has been to all continents. In the last 2 years she has started organizing birding trips around the world. She prefers to hire local guides and has many contacts. If you would be interested in traveling with her, please email her at [email protected].
Her life list is 4159 species seen throughout the world of over 10,000 species and her ABA list is 694 species seen in the US and Canada.
Diana is the Program Director for the Menotomy Bird Club and on the Board of Directors for the Brookline Bird Club and leads bird walks for both clubs as well as for WREN.
The September 3rd walk with Gerry Kehoe was a delight for all of us. She showed us many plants, leading us from the parking area all the way down into the wetland, finding remarkable things to see every few paces along the way. (We even voted to take the long way back since we were all having such a good time.) The gallery below features just some of the sights we saw. Click any photo to launch a viewer where you can read the captions which include some plant identification and other explanations. (Photos by Jon Sachs)
Families learn about Mary Cummings Park and its benefits and kids get to color their own version of our animal, plant and nature concept images.
(The Coloring Corner is a re-use of the giant cutouts created for the July 4th 2015 parade.)
A group of walkers learn what is and isn’t poison ivy from Jon Sachs, who runs the top poison ivy info site. Each walker got a free poster.
(Click each image to see it larger and read captions.)
