Of all the branches in all the trees in all of Dorchester, this hawk (red tail?) landed on the branch next to my window, prey in tow, for a lunch break.

It was a fascinating sight for which I am thankful to have witnessed. But if any Dorchester-area hawks read Universal Hub, a small request: I am happy to host you for lunch, just please clear your place. Staring at a red clump of leftover bird ruins my view (I’ll take graffiti any day!)

Women Outdoors, Inc.
55 Talbot Avenue
Medford, MA 02155
www.women-outdoors.org
Email: ,
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Aug. 24, 2006
To: Press
Contact: Lisa Vaas, 617-477-9779

Women Outdoors is coming (back!) to the Greater Boston Region
Women Outdoors, a non-profit organization dedicated to promote wilderness activities and competency in the out-of-doors, is excited to announce the re-establishment of a chapter in the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1980, Women Outdoors provides women with a structure for a national network of women who work and play in the outdoors, and encourages women to develop an integrated, environmentally conscious lifestyle and to support policies that preserve the earth’s natural resources and promote a strong environmental ethic.

The Urban Pantheist had a good day along the Mystic - he spotted six bird species he'd never seen before (and posts photos). But first he had to get there from the Wellington T stop:

... The area around Wellington station is a hellish sprawl of highways, office parks, construction and more highways. No one walks to or from there: you park there and take the subway into Boston, or you catch a bus from there to somewhere else. I left the station and tried to figure out my way to the river--even though I lead nature walks, I don't have a great sense of direction. I cut through a parking lot to a weedy, trash-strewn earthen ridge. ...

Laura ponders Bradford pear trees, which, soothingly line the streets of Cambridge, but which also tend to die off fairly easily and stink up the joint after they flower:

.. the trees tend to self-destruct. Not as in, "KABOOM" - as in, if they are not pruned as they grow, their tightly-crowded branches push away from the too-narrow, thinly-barked trunk, opening their thumbprint shape into more of a round baby toenail stunted with fungus, leaving them susceptible to wind damage in the warmer months and ice damage in the colder months.