Carly at Neponset Watershed's photostream  

On Feb. 22, 2012 - an unseasonably warm day, with abundant sunshine - I popped over to our Brookwood Farm and Fowl Meadow (Hyde Park) Purple loosestrife biocontrol treatment sites to pick up left-over pots. At the Hyde Park site, a sparrow sang and a gull winged overhead, while other gulls called out from nearby. I spotted Praying mantis egg-cases in the field and even in one of our beetle ranching pots. A winged insect floated upward. Sow bugs scrambled for cover when I lifted the pots, and ants crawled around in a few of the emptied pots. A little bit of green grew in most of the pots - mostly, other species of plant (not Purple loosestrife). However, in a few pots, there were small, pink, very young Purple loosestrife shoots - alive and well! Oy. Learn more about the Purple loosestrife biocontrol project, and get involved: www.neponset.org.

On Feb. 22, 2012 - an unseasonably warm day, with abundant sunshine - I popped over to our Brookwood Farm and Fowl Meadow (Hyde Park) Purple loosestrife biocontrol treatment sites to pick up left-over pots. At the Hyde Park site, a sparrow sang and a gull winged overhead, while other gulls called out from nearby. I spotted Praying mantis egg-cases in the field and even in one of our beetle ranching pots. A winged insect floated upward. Sow bugs scrambled for cover when I lifted the pots, and ants crawled around in a few of the emptied pots. A little bit of green grew in most of the pots - mostly, other species of plant (not Purple loosestrife). However, in a few pots, there were small, pink, very young Purple loosestrife shoots - alive and well! Oy. Learn more about the Purple loosestrife biocontrol project, and get involved: www.neponset.org.

On Feb. 22, 2012 - an unseasonably warm day, with abundant sunshine - I popped over to our Brookwood Farm and Fowl Meadow (Hyde Park) Purple loosestrife biocontrol treatment sites to pick up left-over pots. At the Hyde Park site, a sparrow sang and a gull winged overhead, while other gulls called out from nearby. I spotted Praying mantis egg-cases in the field and even in one of our beetle ranching pots. A winged insect floated upward. Sow bugs scrambled for cover when I lifted the pots, and ants crawled around in a few of the emptied pots. A little bit of green grew in most of the pots - mostly, other species of plant (not Purple loosestrife). However, in a few pots, there were small, pink, very young Purple loosestrife shoots - alive and well! Oy. Learn more about the Purple loosestrife biocontrol project, and get involved: www.neponset.org.

On Feb. 17, I took a stroll across the River St. and Knight St. bridges in Hyde Park, to visit Mother Brook just before sunset. A flock of Canada geese called and paddled about, keeping company with a pair of Mallard ducks. Mother Brook flows from the Charles River into the Neponset River, in Metro Boston. Learn more about the Neponset River and how you can help to protect it at www.neponset.org.

Flowers are blooming early, this year. It's mid-February, and in Roslindale there are snowdrop, crocus, witch-hazel, winter aconite, and hellebore flowers about! It's been an unusually warm winter. Feb. 17, 2012.