Urban wildlife in December

Cormorant on the Merrimack River

It wasn't quite 30 degrees when I started on my walk this morning. The sun streaming in through the window tricked me into thinking I was dressed right, but the frigid air seeped right through my jeans by the time I hit the mile mark.
I'm on winter break from school so of course my thoughts during the walk were mostly about school. As I passed a cormorant sitting on a log poking up from the swelled river, I thought about the spring life sciences unit and started imagining how I could get my students looking carefully at the habitat that is our city. I heard some ducks squawking back and forth then passed a small flock of geese in the shallows, but when I saw the little muskrat chewing something near the edge of the river, I knew I had to record this for them.

Can you make out the little fur ball at the water's edge? He seemed to be a muskrat.

There's a lot to like about Lowell.
#UrbanWildlife

water and mind

I walk to exercise my body and to clear my mind. Were I to list out all the things to be thankful for, that my neighborhood walk brings me past this lake would be high up on it.

The sky around this lake holds the most amazing light. The water is tranquilly still or chaotically wind-blown, seeming to mirror my emotions, or acting on them.

Today, as I walk, I am thankful.

who's road is it?

On my walk the other day I stepped over this sidewalk scribble, not quite finished. Perhaps the graphic artist was called in for lunch or nap time. The words filled the road at an intersection in the back of the neighborhood, almost at the end of a dead end, where the right turn leads to a gravel road. You would think this spot hardly needed a reminder for people to obey the rule to stop at an intersection. But these kids thought it did. 

That right turn leads to a popular public beach on the edge of our little lake, beside which is a fabulously accessible playground. It's also the route to the outside world for people who live in the little houses along these black roads. So, despite the many wobbly kids on bikes, baby carriages, dogs at the end of leashes, and gangs of oblivious teenagers in the middle of the road, people take this corner as if there is nothing in their way. But three out of the four houses on this corner are packed full of young kids, ranging in age from toddler to tween, who use the road, as kids are meant to, as their kickball field and skateboard park, to sell lemonade and create art.

This is their road. They can claim ownership more than any of us taxpaying visitors. And they need us to stop.