Wild Turkeys Take Cambridge!

I love love love going to Cambridge and Boston. It feels a bit like going home. I’m too deeply rooted in southeast Ohio to feel completely at home anywhere else. But it’s as close as a city is going to get. Cambridge has a part of my heart, because there’s so much beauty packed into its narrow streets; because it is stuffed with highly evolved, sentient people who appreciate its architecture and plant to enhance. Remarkable, really, to see the roses and daylilies spilling out onto the streets in an overabundance of beauty; to stumble on a moonlight garden, all white roses, hostas and hydrangeas, or a secret grove of river birches with a stone path winding through them. To see people bending over backward to save this fair city’s immense copper beeches, thankfully far outnumbering the ninnies who would cut them down. Oh, there are ninnies, and it doesn’t take many to ruin a place, but Cambridge somehow holds most of them at bay. As I watch the giant sentinel trees being cut down all along my county road, I think some of them have come to live in Ohio. Grumble.

Being an observer of changes both small and immense, I like pointing out the things that are different now than they were when I last lived in Cambridge in 1981.

photo by Kris Hodgkins Macomber

For one thing, there are a LOT more places to sit now. It’s a much kinder, homier place. Harvard Yard blossoms with multicolored chairs each May, and people actually use them, because they can move them around and form fluid groups for conversation and study. I find myself, with delight, arranging to meet friends "in the chairs in front of Weld," whereas before I'd have had to sit on the dorm steps. There's something so lovely about walking through the Yard and seeing healthy, thriving turf and groups of people visiting, studying, texting, snoozing and even reading analog books in these colorful Luxembourg chairs. Just beautiful. It's like a happening, every day.

Photo by Kris Hodgkins Macomber

Photo by Kris Hodgkins Macomber

Radcliffe Quad, where I lived, has white wooden Adirondack chairs sprinkled around in shady spots! And Adams House courtyard now has teak benches, chairs and a rope hammock, where I gladly melted of a lazy Sunday morning and gazed up at a flawless Massachusetts summer sky.

So humane, so welcoming, so homey. The man behind it? Michael R. Van Valkenburgh, Graduate School of Design professor. Read the wonderful story here.  Harvard, I salute you for opening your arms to students, visitors, and local folk alike. Probably the cheapest yet most profound change in use that could have been effected in this private space turned public.

And speaking of changes...

It was probably four years ago on a brink-of-spring night when I looked up into a tree next to the Harvard U. Science Center and saw what looked like a bag of laundry in a pin oak, backlit by the glowing urban sky. Is that a…turkey??? And it was a wild turkey, roosting alone in a concrete courtyard. I would see her walking alone on the sidewalks on that trip. I knew there were turkeys in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, but here in midtown Cambridge, she looked very much out of place.

Hodge, John and I saw the Harvard Turkey, or one of them, while enjoying a Saturday evening lime rickey and a burger at Mr. Bartley’s Burger Cottage, a Harvard institution that neither takes credit cards nor has a bathroom, and doesn’t need either to be slammed all the time. Burgers are generous and delicious, onion rings and sweet potato fries are light, tasty and authentic, and I could drink their raspberry lime rickeys all day long. And it was while filling our empty ten-mile hike bellies that we spotted the Harvard Turkey. She came stepping across Mass Ave, allowing a sedan to come to a full stop for her before she finished her crossing. She walked like a queen, like she knew she was worth stopping for. And who would want to argue with a 16-pound turkey? A hard bump she would make in your grille.

Our Mr. Bartley's waitress was chagrined when we told her the Harvard Turkey had just graced us with a sighting. This gal was born here; she lives and works here and she’s never seen the famous Harvard turkey. Huh. I see turkeys every time I come to Cambridge. Maybe it’s because I’ve been looking for them ever since that wintry night when I saw the duffel bag sleeping in a pin oak.

Still, I wonder how they manage. I wonder what they eat. The answer is probably everything, from sweet potato fries to crickets to crabapples to flower buds to acorns. Ah, acorns—the staff of a turkey’s life. It seems like a meager existence, but apparently is not. I marvel that a creature of such majesty and presence, not to mention mass, can make its way in such an artificial environment. The formidable brain of a wild turkey, applied to the conundrum of living in gardens, cemeteries, sidewalks and streets, would be more than adequate to the challenge.

I have live, hot off my iPhone video evidence that this odd experiment in colonizing the city is a success. Not only are wild turkeys making their way; they’re reproducing. Leaving Hodge’s Den of Sleep at 7 AM, I walked barely two blocks and lucked into the ultimate Cambridge wild turkey encounter.

 I’m pretty proud of this bit of hand-held wildlife cinematography. Seeing the hen walking slowly down a bricked garden path, I guessed from her watchful demeanor and rapidly turning head that she might have poults trailing behind.  I led them a bit, following the trajectory of the hen, and hunkered down to make this video about where I figured the chicks would be crossing the sidewalk. Bingo!

Enjoy the June parade!  

Celebrating at Mount Auburn Cemetery

It never even occurred to me that celebrating my birthday in a cemetery was anything to remark upon, until someone remarked upon it.

Mount Auburn Cemetery is one of my happy places. It's a place of great beauty, tranquility, comfort and happiness for me. I saw so many of my life birds there--warblers, vireos, my first summer tanager...the list goes on and on. 

When I was a student, I used to read between the Sphinx's great paws. I didn't realize that sitting there could be construed as disrespectful. When the leaves were golden and the air was sweet and I couldn't stand the inside of a library for another second I'd go nestle on her stony bosom and read there. 

We saw what looked like hawk pellets there, and Phoebe climbed up for a second to retrieve them.

Corey and I dissected them, agreeing that the robust claws and teeth said gray squirrel to us. 

We thought they were hawk pellets because they were too small and disorganized to be good owl pellets. Yep, hawks cast pellets too. Saw a harrier cough one up once, and ran to retrieve it when she left.

The Sphinx stares stonily at this gorgeous little chapel. Look at those flower beds! They look like hyacinths in May, or lupines in June--but this is late July. What are they?

An annual called Angelonia, or summer snapdragon. Angelonia salicarifolia (Scrophulariaceae). Native from Mexico to the West Indies. I love it, love it love it. I have planted one here and one there in my flower borders, but never massed them like this. Brilliant! Makes me wonder if they grew them from seed in the greenhouses. I want to try this too. Heat and drought tolerant. And...deer don't like it!

There are no deer in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, something which amazes me. It is very well fenced, but still...there are foxes, coywolves and wild turkeys...hmm.

A sourwood tree in full bloom. Those pendant clusters of creamy bells make a fabulous honey. "Hit's got a whang to it," said a gentleman from Bristol, Virginia. I think of him every time I taste sourwood honey. This is a very large sourwood. It's native to Appalachia, a small understory tree.

Daylilies, reaching toward the light, remind me of angels blowing their trumpets. Mt. Auburn's trees are so huge and mature it must be quite a challenge to grow anything that needs full sun.

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Corey appreciates an ancient weeping beech. People have gone in the green rooms beneath its canopy and carved the heck out of it. Why do they do that? It's vandalism, pure and simple. I love finding beeches around Cambridge that haven't been carved, by virtue of being in the front yards of elegant homes. They're out there. You just have to look for them. It's a small miracle when you find one in a public place that doesn't have somebody's dopey initals on it.

Mt. Auburn Cemetery is paradise for tree freaks. Wonder what that weird-barked thing is? Well, trot on over and read the label! It's an arboretum, that's what it is, a bird sanctuary, a sculpture garden, a park. And a cemetery.

We love it here. The perfect expotition: Hodge in the lead, Corey and Phoebs entwined, me bringing up the rear, digging around, smelling flowers, reading labels, pontificating about this plant or this dropping or that tree or this flower. Bla bla bla bla. They don't seem to mind.

Hodge points out the Roxbury puddingstone that proud and prominent citizens of this Boston suburb used for their headstones. Pretty it ain't, all conglomerated as it is, but it's authentic. I like authentic.

Corey for scale. I wonder how they got that monster there?

On this expotition, we break with tradition (being hungry as usual) and have our Watertown Diner breakfast before our hike. Mmmm. Hash.

My favorite diner of them all. Hash. You must try the hash. Now, hash can run the gamut from pasty red Alpo (with subtle overtones of puke) to absolutely divine. WD's hash is stringy, slightly dry, exquisitely beefy (think rump roast flavor); it has small chunks of carrot and new potato, and the next time I'm going there I'm ordering just hash. So, so delish. Phoebe is now a believer. Her own mother turned her on to hash.

I love being around these two. The glow coming off them puts neon to shame.

Every now and then I force the shadowy, notoriously camera-shy but impossibly cute Hodge to submit to a quick snapshot. Follow @khmacomber on Instagram. 699 followers can't be wrong!

Farewell to Mt. Auburn

Every time I'm tempted to feel the least bit guilty that I spend every spare moment in Mt. Auburn when I'm in the Boston area, I see something like this and that feeling that I might be missing something or someone elsewhere is erased.

The prosaic takes on new and significant meaning for me here. A robin on a tombstone is a robin transformed, and an artist transfixed.

There is unexpected humor everywhere Hodge and I turn. She motioned to her left, laughing...

Ruth. 

Yes, Edgar?

Something's come between us.

That one gets two butts up from The Mallards.

It's so lovely, it wouldn't have to smell so good, too, but Viburnum odoratum perfumes every turn in April. 

And the yellow-rumps never look finer than in cherry blossoms.

Redtails of Mt. Auburn

A very familiar sight in Cambridge these days is a wheeling redtail. Oh, what a magnificent, yet very familiar sight to see. Hodge and I are the perfect pair. I look down, noting small plants and insects and amphibians, and she looks up, never missing a single redtail. We nudge each other, and together make an entire naturalist.

I'm not sure when redtails took over Cambridge, but it was well after I left. I'm sure they weren't around when I lived there. Neither did Pale Male nest just off Central Park, either. Urban redtails are a new thing, a beautiful thing, a needed thing.



In Mt. Auburn Cemetery, they are busy making more redtails. Here's an active nest. How do I know that it's active, other than being told by my local authority?

Well, the camera reveals tailage. My new Canon 7D doesn't miss much, even high overhead in a thick pine. Like me and Hodge, we're a complete unit. I notice stuff, and my Canon 70-300 EF telephoto lens records it magnificently.

Flying redtails are a breeze now. Who could ever tire of seeing a bird like this spread out overhead?

So Hodge and I are watching a redtail sitting, on alert, in a tree, and all of a sudden it launches itself



almost flying out of the frame which was terribly exciting to me

and it lands and grabs an already quite dead and stiff squirrel that we surmised it may have killed yesterday

in this peaceful and rather appropriate setting

and it sets about tearing up said squirrel as we gasp in astonishment at the beauty of it all.

That's my Mount Auburn.

I was very pleased to get a comment from "Friends of Mt. Auburn" on my last post, offering me a private tour the next time I'm in town! Woo! I'll take you up on that, but I'm bringing Hodge along.

brief commercial:

If you like these photos and are thinking of upgrading your rig (highly recommended!) visit Midwest Photo Exchange on High Street in Columbus, Ohio, or on the web. Ask for Sonnie. He'll fix you up. I think you can see that he fixed me up! Finally having a camera rig that's as  quick a birder as I am is an endless delight. 

Birds and Flowers, Turtles and Frogs: Mt. Auburn Treasures

When I was a college student I would walk to Mt. Auburn Cemetery of a fine fall day with a book I needed to read, and nestle between the cool forelimbs of this beautiful sphinx, leaning back against her curved but unmoving bosom, reading the hours away.

Now I stand and photograph her in the sharp April sun, wishing back that precise golden October light that made her embrace the perfect place to be.

The painted turtles know that light.

And so does this elderly red-eared slider. I guessed, simply looking at this lumpy individual, that it started its life in captivity. The irregular surface of the shell might indicate a calcium deficiency. But the kicker is that red-eared sliders aren't native to Cambridge, MA. Who knows how many years ago this big turkle was swimming little circles in the stinking water around a plastic palm tree, trying to live on Hartz Mountain brand dried flies? It was a dark era for turtles. I'm glad we don't do that any more. Well, not as much.

People let a lot of creatures go in Mt. Auburn Cemetery. Heck, I let a couple of goldfish go there one spring, before I went to Brasil for six months.  Ludivico and Pustefix, are you still out there?

Maybe, said the bullfrog.

Probably not, said the great blue heron.

That's Hodge's little foot for scale. Eep, that's a lotta crap.

A morning that started in the 40's rocketed up to the mid-80's, and I threw on a pair of shorts and hurried to Mt. Auburn for a golden hour of photography before a full day of media and Fenway Park began. There were yellow-rumped warblers absolutely everywhere, it being only April 20. This oasis was just receiving its first wave of spring migration.

The rattling snap of ruby-crowned kinglets sounded from every hedge. They sound like miniature firecrackers.

Predictably enough, the pine warblers sang their mellow trill mostly from the pines.  This drab little male came down into a maple to delight us, though. Hodge's life pine warbler. 

And a great prize for me: a male palm warbler in stunning yellow and chestnut.

Where's the chestnut, you ask? On his hat. He's hopping up to a sturdy branch with a hapless caterpillar 

and showing me his little chestnut cap as he beats it to a pulp.

Vicious things,  those warblers, if you're tiny, soft and green.

Mount Auburn Cemetery (The Mothership)

Here's what it comes down to for me. Cambridge equals Mt. Auburn Cemetery. Yes, there are wonderful shops and restaurants, but I don't have any money to spend; I've nothing to my name but hope that this new book digs me out. My last "paycheck" came a year ago, when I handed in the last of 320 illustrations for the book. So I don't spend much time around temptations that cost anything.

But oh, the temptations that are free for the enjoying...

All I can think about when I'm in Cambridge is getting back to Mt. Auburn. Forget the fancy food and the beautiful clothes...everything I need and want is there.

The place has a surreal beauty that completely captivates me. An arch leading to a landscape such as you'd see in a dream, Elysian light streaking across the greensward. I yearn for this place in all seasons, but especially in spring and autumn.

There are plants growing here that I don't recognize, and that is delicious. Anyone?

Venerable specimens of pink dogwood. They take me back to Virginia. So nice to see them growing so tall and strong in Massachusetts.

They join the beloved plants that I do recognize. My father wrote little poems. One had the dogwood as a lady in a lace dress, holding out her arms, proffering plates of divinity. In this case, pink divinity.

My camera, set on zone focus, preferred the dogwood blossoms to the black-capped chickadee! D'oh! Frustrating, but dreamy nonetheless. Maybe I meant to focus on the flowers...

Everywhere there are robins. This, a nicely faded female. I love robin architecture. Sometimes they hold their wings so low and straight they look like they're using crutches.

Her tiny cousin, the hermit thrush, just passing through on its way north. You can tell a hermit from a long way away by the rusty tail, and its habit of raising that tail suddenly, as if it were jerked upward by a string, then letting it fall slowly. Lovely habit.

I always pat this dog's head. He doesn't seem so forlorn on a warm spring day. 

And who could, when the question marks are tickling the Viburnum odoratum, and its full vanilla-cookie scent wafts through the new leaves?

And the wooly fiddleheads are growing taller and taller?

And the geese are grazing in the goldgreen light?