jerrythemaus's Journal

I took a walk around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir at noon on Oct 15, 2020. Temperature was around 20 degrees celsius (or 68F) and visibility was high. There must have been about 15kts of wind though.
There was a small reservation area to the east of the reservoir, right next to Cleveland Circle. I spent most of my time there just standing around and feeling the breeze.
I saw a couple chipmunks and squirrels, but only managed to take a picture of one. Most of the plants present there were vascular plants, as trees and occasional shrubs took up most of the plant diversity at the location. I also found a symbiotic (my guess is that it was parasitic) organism clinging onto a tree. However, it appeared to have died and I could not seem to figure out which species it was.
Overall it was a cozy day. It was nice to take a break from everything else and just be with nature for a while.

I spent some time around the Hammond Pond Reservation on Oct 7, 2020. There was slight overcast (as per usual in the New England region, it seems like) and quite strong wind. It was not too hard to spot fungi there, as I managed to find plenty of dead logs off the conventional path. There were a lot of morphologically distinct lichens on the surface of stones and tree barks as well. Interestingly, the observed (by me) diversity of fungi around this area is way more than that of my destination last week - Arnold Arboretum. I would think the reason being that this reservation has its habitants largely left unattended.
Some Canada Geese and Mute Swans were spotted in the pond, as well as a horde of what resembled ducks. I did not manage to snap a picture of the latter two, as they were on the other side of the water body.
This area is moderate (or I would say a bit small) in size and is within walking distance from BC campus. It has a variety of systems to offer for observation - a pond, at least two significantly different forest compositions, a river stream, etc.

I set out on a small hike to Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University on September 30th, 2020. The weather was clear and in the 68 - 72F, and it had just rained before I departed for the Arboretum. With the hope of discovering some fungi, I wandered around the place for quite a while. To my surprise, I did not manage to find an abundance of fungi other than in the form of Lichens, which I believe is a symbiotic partnership between a fungus and an alga, with the fungus giving it most of the characteristics.
It was actually somewhat tricky looking for different wild organisms, and I believe it is due to the nature of Arnold Arboretum ultimately being some kind of a collective botanical garden with many of the major exhibitions and their immediate surrounding landscape regularly curated and up-kept. As a result, the wild organisms allowed to grow there might also be under some level of control.
Completing tasks aside, I brought my own DSLR and did a little bit of bird and wildlife photography. If there is one thing I learned today, it's that Blue Jays have a screeching loud song and they really despise staying still and getting their pictures taken. Sheesh!