This week were lucky-- we got to have 2 adventures in two days! After a great day of hiking and exploring in the White Mountains with friends, we decided to stay local for our Saturday fun-day. JR suggested the Boston Harbor Islands, where I wanted to go to all last summer, but never actually made it to. So even though the weather was a little cold we jumped in the car, jumped on a train, and walked through the city to the dock.
Now, I will admit, I was a little apprehensive, and I almost wimped out because the weather was cool and windy, and I hadn't worn warm enough clothes, but I toughed it out and we got tickets for the boat out to
Spectacle and
Georges Islands.
We decided to do 2 hours at Spectacle first, which is smaller and less interesting than George's, although we had high hopes that we could find adventure wandering the bare humpy hill island. We read about the history of the island first in the small museum and learned, much to our dismay, that the island was not always the seemingly pristine nature preserve it is now. In fact, it is an old dump site for all of the trash in Boston with 80 feet of toxic trash that is covered with 15 feet of Big Dig dirt and a little top soil today. They admit this to you after you've read about the romanticized history of Native Americans living here, back before the ocean levels rose and this was just a hill and not yet an island.
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| Goldfinch in a tree! We finally got a shot of it |
The island had definitely lost some of it's magic, but we decided to explore it anyways. It turns out the most exciting part of the trash island is the birds that now inhabit the place. And, being Junior Ornithologists, we were happy to tip-toe around the island looking for new birds. It was exciting. We saw some bright yellow
American goldfinches that we kept just missing whenever we tried to take a picture, lots of
red-winged blackbirds. The red-winged blackbirds were very nice to watch as they sat perched on treetops singing their very agitated and chirpy songs. The most exciting bird was a big female turkey! There are many stories related to how the turkey, which can't really fly, ended up on an island so far from the mainland. Grumpus favored the "it just got on a ferry and went for it" analysis, although the park rangers and Mumpus thought that it got carrier over to the island in a big swell. Either way, it was really cool to see. Despite the fun, Mumpus was freezing, so we had our picnic lunch in the museum, where the park ranger lent us a birding book and helped us identify our birds. Then we played around on the dock while we waited for the boat to take us onwards and outwards. Oh and Grumpus blew hot air onto my head to keep me warm.
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| JR balancing at Fort Warren on George's island |
George's Island is slightly more interesting for non-birders. There is a bigger museum, dedicated to the history of the civil-war era fort/prison
Fort Warren that covers the island. The most famous prison was
Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy during the Civil War. He got better food than most, and access to the library -- a rare treat for a prisoner in those times. There was also a nice little video and some awesome plastic displays of dinner food that various soldiers/prisoners apparently ate.
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| Exploring the fort |
We explored the old fort- which is in pretty good condition, goofed around, and decided we had had enough of these windy, cold islands. Then the sun came out, just to spite us, because we had already decided to leave.
It was a good, albeit chilly, adventure. Our parents are coming in town for graduation next week, when they'll meet each other for the first time...
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