Which Birds Do You See?

in South Boston

Many birds are drawn to Pleasure Bay’s calm, protected water as well as the rich food supply, generated in part by the current that flows in and out of the bay.

Illustrations by David Allen Sibley

Sign Location

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In the winter, several kinds of small birds can be seen along the causeway rocks, inside and outside the bay. Look for purple sandpipers with their yellow legs, dunlins, and distinctive ruddy turnstones with orange legs and white further up their necks.

Two kinds of loons frequent the waters in Pleasure Bay and out in the harbor: common loon and the smaller, more slender, red-throated loon. In the winter, when they visit, the red-throated loon is in non-breeding plumage, so there’s no red throat to see.

Community activists. Colonial law. Political will. New state regulations. The combination created the 43-mile Boston Harborwalk–a public path, stretching from Logan Airport through seven neighborhoods to the Neponset River. In 1978, the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) sought to improve public access to the waterfront. They succeeded by integrating early Colonial laws into new state regulations.

In the decades that followed, community activists, city and state government, and developers of shoreline projects have worked together to ensure the Harborwalk is always constructed along the waterfront. Some sites also provide public amenities–bathrooms, meeting places, kayak launches,
etc. The result is a fabulous path welcoming residents and visitors to our vibrant clean harbor.

Early Colonial laws established public right of access along tidelands to protect citizens’ rights to fish, hunt, and navigate at sea and along the shorefront. These laws go back even further: They stem from Roman law, which was incorporated into English law and brought over to Massachusetts by English
settlers. Then, in the 1640s, Massachusetts Bay Colony passed laws permitting private docks in the intertidal area (between low and high tide) as long as public access was retained. Almost all of Boston’s waterfront is filled land that was once the intertidal area. This, together with the centuries-old legal right of access, served as the underpinnings for the 1978 CZM regulations.

Resources

Sibley, David Allen. The Sibley Guide to Birds. Alfred A. Knopf, Second Edition, 2014.

Acknowledgments

This sign is made possible thanks to the city of Boston’s Community Preservation Act Fund.

Friends of the Boston Harborwalk thank the Massachusetts Department of Conservation & Recreation for their partnership.

Warm thanks to David Sibley for his renowned illustrations. We are very grateful to him and Wayne Peterson of the Massachusetts Audubon Society for their expertise and guidance.