Hawk Nest

Stephen Baird of the Emerald Necklace Bird Club reports:

The female Red Tailed Hawk is sitting on the nest in the tree at the stop light by the Morton Street entrance to Forest Hills Cemetery were it nested last year...

A flock of 30-70 Cedar Waxwings have been devouring the seeds of the Scholar Trees on Yew Avenue in Forest Hills Cemetery the past week. A Wood Thrush scampered among the leaves and pine needles of School Master Hill...

Fun Fact: Mark Swartz, Park Ranger at the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, informed me that Franklin Park's School Master Hill (across the way from Forest Hills) was named for Ralph Waldo Emerson, who lived there in a rented farm house for two years in the
mid-1820s.

March bird sightings at Forest Hills

The Emerald Necklace Bird Club reported the following bird sightings at Forest Hills on March 2, 6, 15, 2008:

Canada Goose, Mallard Duck, Black Duck, Song Sparrow, White Throated Sparrow, Dark Eyed Junco, American Goldfinch, Red Winged Blackbird, Common Grackle, European Starling, Mourning Dove, Blue Jay, Black Capped Chickadee, White Breased Nuthatch, Tufted Titmouse, Downy Woodpecker, American Robin, Eastern Screech Owl, Great Horned Owl, Red Tailed Hawk, Cooper's Hawk, Killdeer, Gull Fly Overs

What we can look forward to...

I found this fantastic photo – taken at Forest Hills – browsing on Flickr. I wrote the photographer, Jennifer Howland Hill, asking for her permission to post it here, and to use it for a card promoting the upcoming Birds and Bards Festival (May 2 -4). And she agreed!

Everyone I know is longing for spring to come, and this picture captures that joyful season at its most lush and vibrant. The eggs are cradled so carefully in their nest and in the flowers, you just know that those robins hatched, thrived, and are probably on their way back to Forest Hills right about now.

I recommend taking a look at Jennifer's other work. She has a great eye and a fantastic sense of color, texture and composition.

Visit Jennifer's website
Visit Jennifer's Flickr site

Photo ©Jennifer Howland Hill
All Rights Reserved

The Birds and Bards Festival is a collaboration sparked by one of the Park Rangers at the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site to draw attention to migrating birds, bird habitat, and the ways nature inspires art. He brought together the Trust, Mass. Audubon's Boston Nature Center, the Franklin Park Coalition, and the Franklin Park Zoo; this year the Arnold Arboretum has joined us. Festival activities take place in all of our sites – which together make up more than a thousand acres of greenspace.

Birds and Bards Schedule

The American Civil War & iconic sculpture

Drew Gilpin Faust, President of Harvard University but more importantly (to me) a historian, has lately been making the rounds discussing what will likely be her last book, entitled This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. (Being a historian is time-consuming, but running the world’s most famous and powerful university is even more so!)

The book is on the NY Times bestseller list, and is one that interests many of us here at the Cemetery. Dr. Faust discusses the inconceivable numbers of casualties (to put it into today’s terms, as if we had lost 6 million American troops in Iraq) and looks at how normal, everyday people were affected. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and friends—all had to come to terms with the devastation. The concept of death ceased to be romanticized in popular and literary culture, as families were ripped apart. Some of the bereaved never recovered, and remained in mourning for the rest of their lives, unable to move past their grief. America seemed to lose a sense of innocence and optimism that had defined our country's beginnings a century earlier.

Many of the soldiers from Roxbury who fought and died in the Civil War are buried in Forest Hills’ Civil War lot, which was dedicated on America’s first Memorial Day, in 1868. The statue that marks the lot, Martin Milmore’s The Citizen Soldier, is an iconic work. It portrays the ordinary (but extraordinary) volunteer at a meditative moment instead of an officer or a hero on his horse, and was imitated all over the country for Civil War memorials. Martin Milmore, one of the country's great 19th century sculptors, is also buried at Forest Hills.

And on the topic of flowers...

Our founder, Henry Dearborn, was also the first president of the Massachusetts Horticulture Society and a skilled "experimental gardener." He grew a variety of plants and trees on his estate right here in Roxbury. So what better place to spread the word about Forest Hills than Mass Hort's annual Flower Show! I gave a slide lecture; Nini Colmore (the Trust's Director of Development), Janice Farrell (the Trust's former Program Coordinator, now working full time for the Cemetery, and continuing with us as a fabulous volunteer), and Elise Ciregna (Curator of Historic Collections) staffed a table.

We saw some astonishing flowers. The top ones are luscious peonies, and the orchids were almost too good to be true. Obviously, the phone camera does a better job on flowers than people. Pictured (left to right): Nini, Cecily and Janice.

A splash of color at Forest Hills!

The crocuses and snowdrops have made their miraculous journey up through the earth to bloom in the sunlight. A sign of spring at last!

Eastern Screech Owl Spotted at Forest Hills by Emerald Necklace Bird Club

Stephen Baird sent out this message and a wonderful photo. It is amazing to me how much the owl resembles the bark surrounding it. Good camouflage keeping that bird safe!

An Eastern Screech Owl (Gray Morph) pops out of a hole in a tree to take a brief sun bath many mornings around 10:30 am at ... Forest Hills Cemetery.

For more information about the Emerald Necklace Bird Club and Friends of Jamaica Pond, Inc., visit: http://www.FriendsOfJamaicaPond.org/