The Boston Public Health Commission has lifted its advisory against fishing - mostly ignored - boating and letting your dog splash in Jamaica Pond, because the now annual toxic algal bloom has subsided.

When you think of birds at Jamaica Pond, what normally comes to mind are ducks, geese, maybe cormorants and swans. There's usually a flock of seagulls, too, it's just they rarely get near the shore - let alone come up and stand on it, like this gull did late this afternoon.

One of the signs that went up around Jamaica Pond yesterday after the Boston Public Health Commission confirmed a toxic bloom of blue-green algae that can make people sick and kill dogs.

This time of year, the mallards are usually the main duck species at Jamaica Pond, but this June the wood ducks are giving them a run for their money - instead of the normal one mother wood duck and her brood, there are two, maybe three other families paddling around the pond.

This great blue heron in Jamaica Pond was just hanging out, looking for fish to spear, when it suddenly unfurled one of its wings (and then promptly furled it again).

There are some flowering trees at Jamaica Pond right now (OK, this is a closeup shot, these flowers are much smaller in real life).

A turtle basked in the afternoon sun at Jamaica Pond yesterday.

Every winter, the Boston Fire Department cuts a hole or two in the frozen surface of Jamaica Pond so its divers can practice some cold-weather rescuing. The pond never really froze up this winter, except thinly during that brief weekend freeze, but divers were out in the cold water today anyway.

Despite the lack of ice it is important to maintain efficiency .

Last November, somebody noticed a problem with the "elbow tree," a distinctive birch tree near the Jamaica Pond boathouse with a prominent limb pointing downward at the water, rather than up - its trunk had begun to split open. That's a sign of impending death and the person attached a couple of small notebooks and a pencil to the tree both so that people could measure the crack as it spread and to say goodbye to the longtime pondside attraction. Read more.