At the Arnold Arboretum, May is the busiest month, averaging nearly 60,000 visitors. On Lilac Sunday, 16,000 fans took in the intoxicating scent. The blossoming flowers and trees are spectacular.

Emory Watson,6, climbs a tree in the arboretum and proudly takes in the view with her dad. She’s told she gets one wish.

“I would climb as many trees as I can because I’m not scared,” she says one recent day.

Nearby, others are timid around the flowers, where the bees are busy. Experts say just let them be.

Emory Watson,6, climbs a tree in the Arnold Arboretum.

“For a lot of people these can evoke fear when you see insects flying about. It’s like ‘Oh no, am I going to get stung?’” Nicolle Bell a UMass Extension pollinator specialist says by telephone.

“Most of these bees are disinterested in people. They’re just trying to survive. And it’s a beautiful thing to see bees persisting and making a go of it in these really fragmented urbanized habitats.”

Honeybees, which are not native to the United States, have suffered major losses this year, says Bell. “Massachusetts is a bee haven, with 400 different native species, although some are declining due to habitat loss and other factors…. others have increased.”

A a male Xylocopa virginica, or eastern carpenter bee, enjoys a southern treat, a pinkshell azalea, Rhododendron vaseyi, a native and endangered shrub of the Southeast, at the Arnold Arboretum.

At Crane Beach in Ipswich, thankfully, the nasty greenhead fly season has not started. A fisherman says the stripers are back, but the only one catching anything is one super clean herring gull. It snags a fish but then loses it to a more aggressive juvenile gull who isn’t afraid to get down and dirty in the low tide mud. Mr. Clean screams like a baby but does nothing to take it away.

Up on Castle Hill on the Crane Estate, the deer outnumber people on the beach. A few scurry away but one doe stands still, watching the evening sun head toward the horizon. (Note to Bambi: Stop by the guard shack and look for info on the controlled bow hunt in October.)

A herring gull adult is very vocal about a juvenile gull's theft of a fish, as identified by John Herbert, Mass Audubon director of bird conservation.

In Boston this time of year fog, rolls in and out, creating a pillow of serenity until the sun finally wins out.

A fleet of 420s, with Boston College sails, cruises in formation in Dorchester Bay past the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. The young president loved to sail.

“We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea - whether it is to sail or to watch it - we are going back from whence we came,” said the president in Newport, R.I., in 1962.

Sailboats glide by the JFK Library in Dorchester.

In 1967, the Rolling Stones sang about the praises of “Dandelions” a trippy nursery room tune written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards with backup vocals by Lennon and McCartney.

“Dandelion don’t tell no lies

Dandelion will make you wise

Tell me if she laughs or cries, Blow away dandelion, blow away dandelion.”

Increasingly the dandelion has been public enemy number one for lawn owners who have been brainwashed into pummeling it with pesticides.

It didn’t use to be that way. Dandelions were used by the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Romans, and Greeks. The Puritans intentionally brought it to the New World aboard the Mayflower for their “medicinal and sustenance value,” according to the National Park Service.

They continue to be a good source for pollinators. Just ask the bees.

Dandelion puffballs glisten in the setting sun as motorists drive down Victory Road. Lawn owners hate the spreading of their seeds, but kids love to blow them and make a wish.

But dandelions nowadays are more damned than weeds.

The exception is the legendary retired Red Sox senior director of grounds David Mellor.

“Dandelion is definitely my favorite flower,” says Mellor. “Anytime I see one, I think of our girls picking bouquets for my wife. When the dandelions would turn into puffy seed heads the girls would be giggling and chasing each other around the yard blowing the seeds and having fun. If they were happy, I was happy. In fact, they make me smile, so I don’t worry about them or the clover on my home lawn anymore. Instead, we started looking for four leaf clovers.”

Stan Grossfeld can be reached at stanley.grossfeld@globe.com.