Busy week

***The Friends of Belle Isle Marsh presents the "The Return of the Clam" on Monday evening. Dr. Joe Buttner of Salem State College will talk about aquaculture and efforts to reseed the clam beds at Snake Island and other locations in Boston Harbor and on the Massachusetts coast. The forum is free and open to the public, and light refreshments will be served. Feel free to bring a friend of any age who is interested in science. The forum begins at 7 p.m. at the Orient Heights Yacht Club at 61 Bayswater Street in East Boston.

***Our friends at EastBoston.com tell us that MassPort will be making a presentation at this week's Jeffries Point Neighborhood Association Meeting on Monday. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the Jeffries Yacht Club. Massport will be discussing its Consolidated Rent-A-Car (ConRAC) proposal. (My personal opinion on Massport has not changed: I believe absolutely nothing any of them has to say.)

***The East Boston Greenway is looking for volunteers to help with planting, weeding and mulching on Tuesdays from 3 p.m. to 4:30 beginning this week and continuing to June 11. Those interested in helping should meet at the blue caboose near entrance to the Greenway at South Bremen and Marginal streets. For more information contact Jeremy Dick at jeremy@bostonnatural.org or 617-542-7696.

***Also from our friends at EastBoston.com: There will be a public meeting Tuesday for residents interested in having a dog park built in East Boston. A panel will be chosen to lead the effort. The meeting will be held at the new ZUMIX building at 260 Sumner Street starting at 7:30. If you plan to attend please drop an email to eastiedogpark@gmail.com with a brief note so the hosts have an idea of how many people will show up.

Local coyote dies

A coyote was killed today after it was spotted on the runways at Logan Airport. According to reports, the animal was hit by a truck as Massport workers attempted to corral it.

The coyote could be the same one that local photographer George Cumming posted on his blog about a week ago -- see image at right -- and that he has been seeing locally for at least a year. A local coyote expert told George that this looks like a lactating female, which means that there may be some hungry kits out there tonight.

For whom the Belle tolls

I've mentioned it before, but it deserves mentioning again: the OrientSee photo blog maintained by George Cumming is a wonderful, almost daily, record of a little piece of East Boston that many of us don't witness firsthand. Luckily, George is out there with his camera, taking and posting fantastic shots of Belle Isle Marsh -- mostly birds, but also other fauna, flora and more. (Who would think he could make a rusty spoon look beautiful?) Check it out.