The old leaning tree on the Pond Street side of Jamaica Pond didn't seem like it would make it this year - the crack in its trunk widened into a mini-cavern with enough space to support several families of squirrels and it tipped even more down toward the water, enough so that you could no longer use its outer branches to gauge just full the pond was. Read more.

Jamaica Plain News reports Hyde Park's Roundhead Brewing will take over the Pinebank promontory at Jamaica Pond Aug. 16-17 and Aug. 23-24 for a beer garden that will feature both beer and "farm-to-plate Caribbean American eats."

A family of ducks settled in for a snooze on the northern shore of Jamaica Pond yesterday afternoon (dad was equally asleep, a foot or two away).

Somebody left a bunch of small word rocks on top of one large rock near the Jamaica Pond boathouse.

The hooded mergansers are back at Jamaica Pond for their annual fall visit.

The Boston Public Health Commission has lifted its advisory against fishing - mostly ignored - boating and letting your dog splash in Jamaica Pond, because the now annual toxic algal bloom has subsided.

When you think of birds at Jamaica Pond, what normally comes to mind are ducks, geese, maybe cormorants and swans. There's usually a flock of seagulls, too, it's just they rarely get near the shore - let alone come up and stand on it, like this gull did late this afternoon.

The Boston Public Health Commission said today it's put Jamaica Pond off limits to people and pets due to what has become an annual explosion of toxic blue-green algae. Read more.

The other day a turtle lazed atop the grate that covers the start of the Muddy River: The siphon pipe at the northern end of Jamaica Pond that sends water under Perkins Street to Wards Pond.

As you can see, most of the turtles at Jamaica Pond have relatively smooth shells. But look at Chunker in the lower right.

A close up: Read more.