Every Memorial Day weekend, (except last year), the Massachusetts Military Heroes organization plants a Garden of 37,000 Flags in front of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Boston Common. The flags commemorate the Massachusetts service members who have given their lives in the name of the United States. “We the people,” bear the ultimate responsibility for sending these brave men and women into harm’s way by virtue of the people we elect to represent us in these decisions. While most of these soldiers died in defense of our nation and freedom, I am saddened in my belief that all too many paid the ultimate price for neither of these objectives, a consequence of misguided political objectives. I wish to express my gratitude to all the men and women who have served in our military and will continue to vote for leaders who understand the ultimate futility of warfare in all but the most aggregious circumstances.

Sunday family dinner was hosted by Kyle and included Maya’s best friends. From left to right, Lauren is Maya’s college roommate, awesome birder, and well on her way to bonus daughter status. Fiona was in the same Girl Scout troop, middle school, and on the same soccer team as Maya. Sarrinagh and Maya go all the way back to kindergarten and have been lifelong chums. Sarrinagh and Fiona have already reached adopted daughter status. I conducted my usual relationship inquisition and boyfriend acceptability testing while Jeanine asked about their work and plans for the future. It was a wonderful gathering and our last visit with Maya before she leaves for her summer internship with Rivian. She will be splitting her work time between Normal, Illinois and Boston where she will share an apartment with Lauren.

I learned about a Bald Eagle’s nest in a cemetery just outside of Boston from folks who I met while hanging out with my owl buddies. Last night after work, I drove there and was fortunate to spot one of the pair perched high in a tree with a commanding view of the area. When time permits, I will be returning in hopes of locating the nest and getting some action shots.

For weeks now, I have been waking up early and driving into Acton to photograph a family of barred owls. Some days, I spend hours at the nest site and have few images of photographic merit to show for it. This morning, however, I hit the jackpot. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted mom flying into the area carrying a northern short-tailed shrew. I knew her next stop would either be the nest where the unfledged owlet is still residing or the branch where the newly fledged fluff ball was perched. I set up my camera on the nest which proved to be the wrong guess and had to sprint to an entirely different location and find an angle through all the foliage for a clear shot. By the time my lens was on target and I had dialed in new settings the shrew had already been transferred and mom was about to depart. I literally had a ten-second window for this shot. I think I managed to nail the composition, framing, exposure, focus and was fortunate to have favorable lighting as well. Some may consider me crazy for waking up so early, freezing my ass off for hours on end, and enduring blood-thirsty mosquitoes during warmer mornings day after day. Capturing this one image, however, makes it all worthwhile for me and I would do it all again.

Our new property is graced with a veritable rhododendron forest. We have red, white, pink, and purple varieties which line the driveway and surround two sides of the house. Among the latest to bloom in our neighborhood, they should be at their finest this weekend.

Nico traveled to New York last weekend to compete in the first-ever MLS amputee soccer game. His team, the New England Revs faced the New York Red Bulls. Nico scored 2 goals and had one assist to help his team secure a 3-1 victory. Videos of his two goals are linked below.

First Goal

Second Goal – Nico’s first shot rebounds off the cross bar, the second one slips under it.

Today we printed a thin-walled partial hemisphere in H-13 tool steel. Such a shape would be extremely challenging to fabricate using conventional machining. It is the largest volume part we have printed to date with a diameter of 5 inches. In recent weeks, the company’s board of directors has authorized the sale of the company after it became clear that we would not be able to attract sufficient investments to operate autonomously. My team has proven that our printing process is viable and robust. The market for the types of parts we can print is universally acknowledged as being very sizeable. The rub, is that it will take two more years, in my estimation, to design, test, and deliver a second generation printer design that will have the requisite capacity, speed and print quality to be successful in the market. We are hopefull that a suitable buyer will emerge that will allow us to cross the finish line.

This morning we had a new visitor to our back yard. A very large and very old snapping turtle. Jeanine was drinking her morning coffee in the living room when she looked up to discover this very docile fellow just resting on the ground. I was able to take several photos before the turtle moved rather quickly into the undercover of our rhododendron forest.

For the first time I can remember, I failed to take photos at an important family gathering. This afternoon, we celebrated Nico on completion of his master’s degree program in education from Lesley University. The family was joined by several of his friends and his Aunt Susan who came down from Burlington, Vermont for the occasion. Nico smoked several chickens, Jeanine prepared an amazing salad and one of his friends arrived with a rhubarb drop cake for dessert. It was a wonderful party but sadly I did not take any photographs because I was too busy helping out as a host and also because I was pretty banged up from my soccer match earlier in the day. We played against Everett, one of our strongest and most physical opponents, beating them by a score of 2-0. I had an assist on our first goal when I beat an offside trap to make a run on goal. I took the ball well into the box and waited for the keeper to commit before passing to a teammate for the easy tap-in. On the very next play, I had a breakaway and got a strong shot off before their sweeper took me down with a bone-crushing tackle that left me pretty bruised on the entire right side of my body. Lacking a photo for the day and the desire to do little more than nursing my wounds, I am posting a few images from earlier in the week.

Capturing birds in flight (BIF) is one of the most challenging aspects of wildlife photography. It requires the right equipment, skill, and a bit of luck. In my opinion, red-winged blackbirds are much more photogenic when flying than they are when perched because you can fully appreciate the coloring of their wings.

Jeanine’s sister, Susan, is visiting us for the weekend to attend Nico’s master’s degree celebration tomorrow. This morning we took her out to observe our nesting owls and herons. We had nice weather and good luck. She was able to observe babies at both sites. We then treated ourselves to breakfast at the Blackbird Cafe, something that we have missed since the start of the pandemic. Later Jeanine drove her to Medford where the two had a chance to see Kyle’s new house. The closing date has been set for June 12th and Jeanine and I will get our first full tour early next week.

In a respite from all the recent bird photography, today’s post features a Northern Water Snake. On an evening nature walk, Jeanine spotted it on land and I tracked it into the water. Fish, frogs, tadpoles, and salamanders make up the bulk of their diet, though they will also take small mammals, birds, insects, crayfish, and other invertebrates. When threatened, they rapidly retreat to the water. If cornered, they do not hesitate to strike but are non-venomous. The specimen seen here is using its tongue to taste the air and water to help locate prey. It is about half the size of a full-grown snake which can reach 5 feet in length. Pictured below is one such adult which I photographed some 15 years ago.

Formlabs just announced that it has secured $150M in an E-series fundraising round. This puts its market cap at $2 billion dollars. It is the fifth company (Formlabs, Markforged, iRobot, Sonos, Avid) to cross this threshold for which I led engineering during some portion of their rapid growth phase. To be clear, credit for these dramatic successes is almost entirely due to their respective founders/leaders. That said, I believe in each case, that I made meaningful contributions to these outcomes. With retirement inching closer every day, it is with some measure of pride that I can look back on a career that helped generate more than $10 billion dollars of market value for investors and one-tenth of a percent of that for me. Pictured above is the Form 3L, one of the last products I was involved with when I worked at Formlabs.

I apologize for the recent spate of bird photos but I continue to encounter interesting subjects on my morning walks. I am happy to report that there are two owlets in the nest I frequent and my speculation about infanticide may have been incorrect or, there was a third sibling.

Based on information from a fellow photographer, I was able to locate a local Osprey nest this morning. It appears to be under construction but did serve as a staging platform for this Osprey who stopped in for a quick breakfast snack. Click on the images for a higher resolution look at this magnificent bird.

Maya is sharing a house in Medford with several Olin students. Many of them graduated today and they were joined by their parents for a party at the house afterward. Everyone has been vaccinated and this is the first event where we all felt safe not wearing masks. Maya will graduate next year and has accepted a summer internship with electric truck maker, Rivian. Jeanine did the heavy lifting on food preparation for the event which included chicken and vegetarian enchiladas. I was on guac and photography duty but had to leave the celebration early to complete our income tax filings which were complicated by the sale of our home last year. Earlier in the day, I returned to action on the pitch and played a good 50 minutes. I kept my sprints to 90% speed just to make sure I did not reinjure my calf muscle. We dropped a goal in the first 2 minutes but fought back to secure a 3-1 win.

This morning Jeanine joined me for an early excursion to visit the owls and we were treated to our first glimpse of an owlet (locals report that two have been sighted in the nest). Sadly, it may be our last. About 30 minutes after this picture was taken, the mother was observed eating a large meal. It is possible that she had some food stashed away, perhaps another mouse like the one she caught yesterday. However, if so, why would she have waited so long to start eating it and why would she not share it with her babies. Based on our observations, it is very possible that she was eating one of the owlets. Owls have been known to do this when there is an inadequate food supply or if an offspring is not thriving for some reason. Below is the photograph that led us to this conclusion. The feathers in her beak seem very consistent with those of the owlet. I hope our suspicions are proved wrong and plan to visit the nest several more times to see how the story plays out.