ride in this morning was cold, still slow but pleasant enough.

An environmental success story: When I first started riding the MDC bike path along the Charles in 1980 the river had a pretty bad smell to it, I would see very little bird life along the Charles, no one fishing, and the river really had a kind of "dead" look to it. I have watched the effect of national and regional environmental legislation as this river has slowly come back to life over the past 25 years. Due to the plethora of creatures along the river now (and the reduction of pesticides like DDT) red tailed hawks have returned in abundance and some of them are just massive from the volumes of squirrels, rats and pigeons they consume. Sometimes I'll be startled to see one sitting at eye level on a post or in a low tree branch. Today I heard the call of a hawk and slowed enough to look around and see one of these big ones gliding low in the air pursued by a coven of crows that must have numbered two dozen. I wondered who the hawk would have been calling to, or why?. Maybe the crows were actually making the call in their attempt to announce the presence of this hulking predator, hmmm, don't know.

the ride home was really windy, right in my face, really windy. I was going very slow, again.