local ecologist

The large and small of animal art in U.S. cities.

Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, Calif.

Fulton Street, Berkeley

Addison Street, Berkeley

Denver, Colorado

Byers Evans Museum, Denver

Public library, Denver

Seattle, Washington (one of the Pigs on Parade, 2007)

Finally, it’s not quite art, and I think Boston’s duck and swan boats are more creative, but here’s Toronto’s water tour vehicle:

69 Albany Street, The Annex, Toronto
A full-length post about Jane and her neighborhood will follow in July.

Broken hydrant on Bancroft Avenue
The firefighters who shut off the hydrant from a manhole in the street received a hearty round of applause from the crowd.

The London planetree pictured below was recently topped, within the last two weeks. Topping is a poor pruning practice leading to structural and physiological problems. This does not look like pollarding and there are no overhead wires with which a full crown would have interfered.

It is a large diameter planetree, apparently healthy; with a full crown, it would provide many psychosocial and ecosystem benefits. For a live look, the tree is located off Marin on Euclid.

Source: New York Times, Photo by Tom Hanson, The Canadian Press

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, President George Bush, and Mexican President Felipe Calderon

None of the men planted the oak on Lafayette Square; it was a ceremonial planting described by a reporter from The Times-Picayune as “hoist[ing] golden shovels to pitch dirt over a newly planted oak tree in recognition of Earth Day.”

None of the media outlets reported who planted the tree (the Parks Department? an urban forestry NGO?) or the species of oak.

Open. Ramblas. Terraced. These are the forms of hybridity developed by Hood Design for the Center Street project. Details of the design are on display in the northern and northwest windows of Cody’s Books. (The photographs were taken at mid-day.)

Will Berkeley residents choose open hybrid, ramblas hybrid, or terraced hybrid? What’s your choice?

Note the creek element in the second section.

Except this one is not paved. The mid-block lot on the north side of Blake between Fulton and Shattuck has been vacant for the past four years, at least. I had plans for this lot: the 4B Habitat Project. The B’s are bats, bees, birds, and butterflies. Now - within the last month - it is a parking lot. Although it is unpaved, at least one half of the lot is compacted by through traffic. Note the parallel ruts in the second photograph.

December 2007

March 28, 2008