Mark Eichin

@eichin.bsky.social

399 Followers 262 Following

https://mastodon.mit.edu/@eichin https://www.thok.org/bloggery/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/

Didn't see much other than robins out in the pond, but looked up and saw this guy in a dead tree directly overhead...)
For Your Information about "Munitions and Explosives Of Concern" and the "3Rs - recognize (MEC is dangerous) retreat (don't touch move or disturb MEC, leave the area) report (call 911). Includes a QR code and recognition images of a couple of grenades. Also says *no digging* and *no magnet fishing* in the Nashua River - all in all they get across "no we're not kidding, this isn't petty this is *actually a serious problem". (Unlike the other shot, this was a closeup, on the bank of a river that I'm having second thoughts about kayaking in...)
Noticed this guy from about 15 ft away (two fence segments) and froze and got a couple of pictures before he took off. (Breeding plumage.)
Kimball Farms signs
I'm not sure *what* this is - it was definitely swimming away from me, might have ducked under briefly (I spotted it after hearing a "bloop" that might have been something else) and my first thought was turtle, but that's a rather jagged shell (and head, really.) Maybe a smallish snapping turtle? (High magnification from 200ft away so distance cues are lacking.)
The Pine Hill Road trail is well maintained gravel and a popular (but not busy) dog-walking area. Merlin reported an Eastern Towhee and a Goldfinch, but I didn't spot them. (I did see a mourning dove and a variety of sparrows.)
Grey van matching the other pic, for Speed Plumbing Services, but instead of the chatGPT line it says "We Repair What Your Husband Fixed!"
Dribbles outside
Dr. Davis Ice Cream storefront
Stripped down interior of the Village Market - not a former bowling alley. Kind of has backrooms vibes...
Heard very loud croaking from the trail and climbed down to the shoreline - only found this one (but heard at least two others, just by location.) Either the river is *really* shallow here, or more likely there's a fallen tree or branch underwater...
broad but relatively skinny pretzel from Red Heat Tavern, with utensils for "scale"
Uhlman's Ice Cream storefront
Dull-toned bluebird (female or juvenile?) that I haven't seen at this feeder recently
Screenshot of this thread from an app that failed to preserve the formatting
A pair of mallards flew up from the swamp and decided to nibble their way down the trail instead.
5 donuts from union square donuts
Meola's Wayside Ice Cream front sign
Apparently it was originally preserved because it was stone, and then later restored with concrete - it kind of has a vaguely "viking church" feel, despite it being 100ish years old and not 1000ish, maybe because of the general roughness. Nice gardens around it; very scenic, though currently it's on a "closed" road and you have to walk a bit to get here. (I checked, the road is supposed to reopen in a couple of weeks - it's a railroad bridge raising, but unlike the famous truck-eating bridges, the road is *over* the rail.)
(maybe a flicker? red band instead of red head, so it's at least a different individual)
Heritage Farms Ice Cream storefront
About half of a large black crow exiting stage left (took off hard enough that the evergreen is motion blurred from the recoil.)
Krispy's neon
Wirtgen WR250 (maybe wr250 x?) "Cold Recyclers and Stabilizers" www.wirtgen-group.com/ocs/en-us/wirtgen/wr-250-x-334410-p/ in the parking lot at the east exit from Quabbin - probably staged for the Parking Project, not something you usually see at a nature reserve :-) I've seen that "direct hydraulic drive" wheel system before, it's apparently ludicrously powerful *and* very precise at the same time.
same occupied nest from the south instead of the east
They did get off the trail once they stopped staring at the photographer 250ft away and noticed the jogger right behind them coming up from the parking lot (who also stopped to watch them, and actually noticed that they didn't go far into the woods - not that there's all that far to go, Stone Arch Bridge park is surprisingly nice for something 2 miles north of 495, but it is surrounded by houses...)
Cookie monster, looking upset, typing at a computer and saying "DELETE COOKIES?!" Artist signature "fernandez", file metadata says 2009...
Happy Spring!
The whole group of turkeys that were working their way down Winterberry Ave together.
Map of ice cream shops in massachusetts with 🍨 marking close-to-every ice cream shop. The icons are a little too big which is amusing. MapLibre/OpenFreeMap/OpenMapTiles and OpenStreetMap credits at the bottom.
Unaltered picture of the MIT Stata Center from the street, showing unusual angles and lots of windows jutting out from angled walls (which leak as much as you might expect.) Renderered in the style of a "demotivator" motivational poster, with a large single word "PLANNING" and small text below "Step 1: Unfold the Blueprints" (because the building really does look like a badly folded map.)
Cover of April 1981 (Vol 6 No 4) of Byte Magazine, labelled "Future Computers?" with the Robert Tinney artwork of a shiny metallic wristwatch on a business-attired sleeve - with a *very tiny* computer keyboard and CRT as the watch face, with almost unreadable text "insert disk" and the subject's fingers sliding a floppy disk into the side (at roughly microSD scale.)
A plateful of French toast with a generous dusting of powdered sugar
More photogenic winter cardinals
Looking inquisitively
Apparently the rabbits prefer the shoveled sidewalk too (it did snow for another couple of hours after the previous shoveling)
Davis Square (Somerville MA) "squashed spider" 6-and-a-half-way intersection sign, above more traditional (but insufficient) lane signage.
Coincidentally, the next picture on the trailcam was a rabbit in the exact same spot as the bobcat (but 23 hours later), which would be a great scale reference... if we had any idea how big the rabbit was (the ones I see around here vary in size by at least a factor of two, and that's *not* in the spring when the babies are out...)
night view from a trailcam, a bobcat stepping forward for 3 frames and then "turning into" a small rabbit. (at least if you ignore the timestamps at the bottom)
"The Far Side" one-panel comic by Gary Larson. Two pilots in a large complicated jet cockpit, view out the window is clouds and a goat... one pilot says to the other "Say... what's a mountain goat doing way up here in a cloud bank?"
The swan itself looks winter-monochrome but apparently the juvenile/immature ones don't have their full beak color.
There is some clear water but it's a couple of hundred feet down from where the heron is perched.
Heard the sort of breathy screech, and then he took off; didn't have time to zoom back in :-)
A big electric griddle with slices of french toast on it is a pretty good thermal-infrared subject...
Palm "abacus" wristwatch, 2x2 grid of apps, plugged into power but held in my hand. Apps: address, calc, datebook, hotsync. Brushed metal case, leather band, rubber buttons.
After heading up the trail and back without finding another angle on the heron, came back to my original spot and it was still there, tucked in as if sleeping.
Pink image of a crescent (partially eclipsed) sun, on a large tube-style TV, tuned to channel 17; the TV is surrounded with Christmas ornaments. The sun is shining brightly through a nearby window (while the TV signal is live, it was only a *partial* eclipse after all.)
smithers-fingers murmuring "excellent!"
Also looking west-of-north; red with green stripes, very phone-camera boosted (something like a 3 second exposure plus whatever magic stabilization and color trickery Samsung does - the metadata says half a second but I definite *held* it longer than that...)