Mary Ellen spotted this barred owl in East Boston yesterday.

Welcome to Dot files a dispatch this afternoon from Ocean Street in Dorchester, already known for the meanest turkeys in all of Boston: Read more.

Wandering the moors along the Charles River in West Roxbury, Mary Ellen spied a dickcissel, no doubt debating whether those seeds it's eying are worth risking getting swallowed by a hawk.

Which of course, raises the question of who the bird formerly known as the black-throated bunting so offended in the ornithological world that they renamed it with one of birddom's more ridiculous names. Read more.

Odillion.hache spotted this barred owl in the alley along Ringgold Park this morning, wonders: Read more.

Roving UHub photographer Melissa Hirshson spotted this bird seeking a chance to speak about her Lord and Savior, or maybe to ask to see an electric bill or even to seek a donation for GBH, at the main entrance to the rectory of Christ Church in Harvard Square this morning (bonus: Note the boot scraper on the step).

Welcome to Dot spotted these drenched, bedraggled turkeys on the Harborwalk near the JFK Library in Dorchester on this, our second straight day of rain.

This was the view down the Charles River at the Millennium Park kayak launch in West Roxbury today.

Here's roughly the same view yesterday, before the afternoon deluge - when you could still walk to the very middle of the riverbed without getting your feet wet - in part via a path made by all the people walking through land plants in what would normally be the river. Read more.

In the dawn mist along the Charles River at Millennium Park this morning, Mary Ellen spotted a black crowned night heron, a couple of mallards and a great blue heron.

Walk out onto what used to be the middle of the Charles River at Millennium Park these days and you'll see not just sand and mud and land plants growing everywhere, but the shells of what our local wildlife photographer Mary Ellen says are Chinese mystery snails. Read more.