The Charles River at Millennium Park is still really shallow, but after yesterday's rain, it's a bit wider than it was last week, as Mary Ellen shows us.

It's got to be frustrating to be a Millennium Park beaver these days: There's just not enough water to dam up along the Charles, but especially in Sawmill Brook, which no longer empties into the Charles because it no longer flows. This morning, Mary Ellen spotted this once eager beaver forced to waddle across mud and what's left of the water.

Update: Mary Ellen posted video showing that the little guy was able to get a bit of a swim in.

Gio Valencia watched a couple of kayakers walking their craft down the deepest part of the Charles River by Millennium Park in West Roxbury. The river's normally pretty shallow in that stretch, but the current drought has reduced it to a shallow creek there.

GBH surveys the battle between Native Americans, conservationists and people who want to save some money and people who say the South Natick Dam is the only scenic thing about the damn river in their town and so well worth the extra money it would cost to repair.

There's a fair amount of Queen Anne's Lace along the top of Millennium Park in West Roxbury, but this one, overlooking the marshes that lead to the Charles River, was by far the largest of them all.

WCVB reports.

Mary Ellen videoed a deer going for a swim in the Charles River at Millennium Park in West Roxbury yesterday. Read more.

Ladybugs Leaf spotted the Esplanade's latest visitor today.

Patrick Roath saw him in the Fens yesterday: Read more.

A little hard to see, but there's a snake near the center of the photo, which Greg Hunt took today at Powell Island, a part of the marshy area along the Charles in Needham, near the Newton line, just across from Millennium Park in West Roxbury. And he reports it didn't like having its photo taken: Read more.