Magazine Beach

What we saw at Explore Nature this morning at the park…

In the Charles: fresh water mussels, tiny crustaceans and aquatic worms…

An Isopod or Aquatic Sowbug and Ostracod or Seed Shrimp

Aquatic worms

Fresh water mussels

On the path and in the swales:

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In the sky: red-winged blackbirds, gray catbirds, downy woodpeckers, and cedar waxwings.

Mass Audubon’s naturalists will be back the next 4 Tuesdays at 10am for Nature Detectives. Come discover the park! FREE.

Take note: Bird walk at the park, tomorrow, Sunday, July 10 at 7am. Meet at the park entrance at the BU Rotary. FREE.

And, Sunday, July 10^th is the Riverside Boat Club’s Cromwell Cup Regatta, the largest summer regatta on the river with over 600 competitors! 7am-6:15pm. View if from the beach!

Updates: Saturday’s Bird Walk has been postponed until tomorrow, Sunday, July 10th at 7am. Meet at the entrance to the park at the BU rotary. Enjoy the day!

Yesterday, dozens of families basked in the sun and admired the fitting red and blue sunset at the park, before heading to watch the fireworks just up the river. The smell of sizzling burgers and dogs wafted through the air. It’s summer at Magazine Beach! Photos courtesy of Silas Weiner.

Nature wastes nothing. When I enter Magazine Beach from Brookline Street I like to check for woodpecker holes in trees with broken limbs. The woodpeckers used them and moved on, leaving them to this year’s nesters, the house sparrows. I look for holes with signs of habitation- clusters of protruding dead grasses, step back to give the birds a little space and wait. A female lands safely out of view in the tree’s leaf cover as a male emerges from the tree hole and flies off. She then disappears into the hole with whatever seed or insect she has found for her young.

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Next, I scan the lawn for robins and starlings, whose young are out and about foraging for insects.  I find young robins to be particularly handsome-vivid white rings around the eyes with spotted throats and upper chests that give way to a rusty red belly. If I am lucky a couple of Baltimore orioles will cross the field and head into the tall shade trees along Memorial Drive.

By this time, the redwing blackbirds announce my arrival by dive bombing me and making their check- check call. Red wings are polygamous and the 30 or so males I record on a busy day suggest the presence of more females, not to mention the young in the nest. The birds heed the redwing’s warning, rise out of the swale and head for the safety of the tall trees lining the river.  I follow them with my eyes: female redwings, starlings, eastern kingbirds, a cat bird, gold finches, and today’s special treat, a handsome tree swallow. He glistens a rich, metallic blue with a contrasting white throat and underparts, his pointed tail deeply split.

Birds all over the park are predators and prey, competitors and collaborators. The trees, grasses, shrubs, insects, berries, birds, microbes, animals and fish weave a web of life that renews itself each spring and makes human life possible. It is vividly on display right now.

Jean Strahan

Eager to see this for yourself? Walk the park with Jean on Saturday, July 9 at 7am. Meet at the park entrance at the BU rotary. FREE! (Rain date: July 10–Check here at 6:30am Sat. to see if this event is on. The birds will only be out if it’s NOT raining.) POSTPONED TO SUNDAY, JULY 10.

For a list of the birds Jean has sighted at the park since October 15, 2015, click here: Cumulative Species List Spring2016.

The weather is supposed to be sunny and in the upper 70ies/lower 80ies this weekend. The pool will be open from 11am-7pm, daily, through August 21. FREE! Re swimming lessons, check Events in the next weeks to see whether DCR will offer them OR ask the lifeguards. UPDATE: Just heard. The pool will probably NOT offer swimming lessons this year…

Yoga Begins Saturday at 9am

Come to the park for Yoga Saturday mornings: June 25, July 2, 9, 16, 23 & 30 & August 6, 13 & 20. Cancelled in case of rain. Bring your yoga matt and strap and block if you’ve got them. Meet on the MB side of the pedestrian footbridge. Led by Carol Faulkner and Vered Levy. Donations welcome. Shop at the Farmer’s Market in the parking lot at the Morse School afterwards!

Yogis at the  Beach in 2014

Stories & Song Starts Monday at 10am

Meet at the MB side of the pedestrian footbridge. Click here for the complete list of Summer Programs. Also, click here to learn about the Charles River Conservancy’s Parkland Games, beginning this Sunday the 26th.

About 200 turned out at the park Tuesday night for a gorgeous evening of fun, fresh air, community, and, of course, music. Great full moon, too. Photos mostly by Bimal Nepal.

Make Music Boston is an international celebration of music. 800 cities, including Cambridge, participated yesterday!

Porch-i-oke leading a silly, delightful sing-a-long

A music lover with his dog

Envision Cambridge gathering feedback

Genevieve Holmes of Make Music Boston and our social media guru Chris Ward and friend

Slainte, playing great Irish tunes and more

Harmonica jam!

Best Ever Chicken+ playing not just bluegrass

Lots of kids, whizzing by, enjoying an evening at the park

Picnickers enjoying the longest day of the year!!!! And the music….

Noteflight introducing their musical composition software

Attention, all: Saturday Morning Yoga, with legendary Carol Faulkner, begins this Saturday, June 25th at 9am. Bring your yoga matt, and strap and block, if you’ve got them. Meet under the trees, near the pedestrian footbridge. Donations are welcome. AND, the pool opens this Saturday at 11am!

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See you at the park tonight–Tuesday, 5-8pm. Bring a hat and some water and relax into the longest day of the year at Magazine Beach!

Our 2016 Summer Program series kicks off next Tuesday night! Make Music Boston, a city-wide music festival, comes to Magazine Beach June 21, 5-8pm. (Raindate: Thursday, June 23). Best Ever Chicken will play bluegrass; Slainte, Irish music; and Porch-i-oke, groovy sing-a-long pop tunes from Lady Gaga to Johnny Cash.

Bring your harmonica and ukulele and play in mass jams with other musicians. Bring your instrument and a chair! Don’t have a harmonica? Come anyway and we’ll provide them. Noteflight will also share their composition software. It’s all FREE, FREE, FREE.

Foodtrucks! Port-o-potties. What more could you ask for? For more information, go to our Events page.

Saturday Morning Yoga starts June 25 @ 9am. The pool opens that day @ 11am. And Stories & Song begins  June 27 @ 10am. See you at the Beach!

The FREE swimming pool doesn’t open until Saturday, June 25th, but there’s a cool breeze along the river beckoning YOU…. All of these folks, and more, were relaxing at the park on Thursday.

I realize that I’m a little obsessed, but EVERY DAY the magazine is looking a little different. It is well worth a visit.

Clapboarding is up. Some windows are in. Metal doors are on. And sewage pipes are in, too.

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Over 100 Novartis volunteers were at the park yesterday cleaning brush, raking leaves, removing vines, gathering twigs, weeding gardens, picking up trash and painting picnic tables and benches. THANK YOU SO MUCH. And thanks to the Charles River Conservancy, for coordinating the event. Magazine Beach was one of 32 sites included in Novartis’ Community Partnership Day–about 2,700 employees helped out around the Cambridge and Boston.

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Remember, Powder Magazine Open House Saturday!

DCR’s Peter Seweryn will be there, May 14, 10-12 noon, to talk about the work going on. Things are happening and fast. Check it out! And enjoy the park while it’s looking so good. Tomorrow will be in the 70ies and sunny!