An irate citizen files a 311 complaint about the Bird scooters from Brookline he or she says are now piling up along the Riverway in Boston, where the things are not (yet) legal: Read more.

Across Perkins Street and down an embankment from Jamaica Pond, you'll find the much smaller - and far less visited - Wards Pond.

Right now, the water lilies are in full bloom - along with other flowers, some of which you might have to look for pretty carefully, because they're kind of small. Read more.

Arbotopia is a running account of wildlife found on walks through the parks of the Emerald Necklace.

James Michael Curley's old place on the Jamaicaway, which has mostly sat unused for decades, will get new life under a plan by the Emerald Necklace Conservancy to re-open it for regular historical and cultural events. Read more.

As you might expect, Mike Dukakis is a speaker at an MIT transit forum today. People of course wondered why he was sporting large bruises on his face and a bandage on the bridge of his nose. Cambridge City Councilor Jan Devereux, who posted a photo of the dented Duke, reports:

He fell picking up trash on the Emerald Necklace.

PRI interviews a Finnish landscape architect about everything that's wrong with the Emerald Necklace.

Ed. note: Interesting article, but it sounds like she doesn't know anything about the Muddy River reclamation project and didn't spend any time south of Rte. 9.

Missing burl. Boston Parks photo.Boston Police report arresting a man
who may be responsible for vandalizing trees in the Emerald Necklace in recent months - by sawing off burls, large bark protuberances that are popular among woodworkers and sculptors.

Police say Mike Scanlan's mistake this morning was wielding a chainsaw on a tree in the Fenway Victory Garden, where several witnesses saw and heard him - and then called police after they watched him walk over to an apartment building at 15 Park Drive.

When officers arrived at the gardens, they found "what appeared to be several pieces of freshly cut wood," police say.

The city has installed a series of traps in parks to see if they can stop the destructive elm bark beetle:

The traps consist of 18.5"x 28" green plywood boxes mounted approximately 15 feet off the ground on trees located at least 150 feet away from any elms. Four have been placed on Boston Common, four in the Public Garden, three in the Fenway Victory Garden, and one in Copley Square.

This time, in the Fens. The Fenway News reports Boston is seeking ideas for what to do with "the Duck House," an old restroom building on Agassiz Road that's gone unused since a fire in 1986:

... The Parks Department is seeking expressions of interest that provide for a public benefit and complement park management and programming. If a compatible use can be identified, the Department could grant a lease to a tenant who would restore the building for this use, provide public benefit, and enhance the Back Bay Fens. The Department would consider a long lease term; however, if the term is longer than three years, legislation will be required to enact such an agreement. ...