Tag Archives: Fresh Pond Reservation

Five Questions for Cambridge’s Monarch Nannies

Why are Monarch butterflies so special? We recently asked five questions of Martine Wong, Fresh Pond Reservation (FPR) Outreach & Volunteer Coordinator, and her Cambridge Mayor’s  Summer Youth Employment Program (MSYEP) intern, Shewit.  On August 6th and 7th, amidst some fanfare—kids and puppets—Martine, Shewit and other staff and volunteers released most of the butterflies that they had helped raise,Continue reading “Five Questions for Cambridge’s Monarch Nannies”

A Single Species: An End-of-January Investigation

There is sometimes too much, or too little, simplification that goes on when “environmental education” takes hold. Starting with a single species, as Fresh Pond Reservation staff in Cambridge, Mass., will do on January 31st with “The Secret Life of White Oaks,” can make a path for kids, families, anyone, to start small and grow curious from there.Continue reading “A Single Species: An End-of-January Investigation”

Of Petals and Stems

Helianthus strumosus. Have you seen these tall flowers,  yellow at center and yellow on the petals?  They’re not the Yellow Coneflowers that feature brown centers and yellow petals. These sunflowers are abundant at Fresh Pond Reservation.  Thin-Leaved Sunflower (Helianthus strumosus) is our best working guess as to what they are. We’ll have some good headgear to loan out to plucky Cambridge citizens and kids who wantContinue reading “Of Petals and Stems”

Airport Owls, Hooting Toddlers: A Feathered Friend in Cambridge

Owls visited our fair city last weekend and kids were there in droves to see them. Licensed wildlife rehab maven and Massachusetts resident Patricia Bade (given the punchy name “Owl Woman” by her Penobscot elders before she could say “boo”) brought her un-releasable saw-whet owl and screech owl to Maynard Ecology Center for a familyContinue reading “Airport Owls, Hooting Toddlers: A Feathered Friend in Cambridge”

Honk! Honk! The parade is almost here!

Wandering Gliders (dragonflies), Blue-Fronted Dancers (damselflies), pond algae (hand puppets), two Great Blue Herons and a gaggle of other animals will muster at the 8th annual Honk! Parade from Davis Square, Somerville, to Harvard Square, Cambridge, this Sunday. Trees also play a role in our party at Honk! Brought to you by Neighbors and NeighboringContinue reading “Honk! Honk! The parade is almost here!”

Fungi at Fresh Pond Reservation

Behind Neville Place, built in the early 1920s as a hospital for the aged, there’s a mixed forest of beeches, oaks, a few birches, maples, on relatively flat ground. The old folks’ home is still a home to quite a few old folks, whom Ranger Jean has been galvanizing into tree study. The posters onContinue reading “Fungi at Fresh Pond Reservation”

Park[ing] Day

Enormous, lumpy, bright green spheres—walnuts sporting their whole husk—are littering the byways of Fresh Pond Reservation like a shell midden in the middle of nowhere. Asters are in full flush. A vole was so busy with fall it didn’t bother to hide itself, scuttling right in front of my feet across a wood chip path.Continue reading “Park[ing] Day”