Little Blue Heron
Things are really picking up this week, with a bike ride across the Brooklyn Bridge for pizza, another heron day at Jamaica Bay, the beginning of co-op, Bob's birthday (today), and music school starting up this Saturday.
We've really enjoyed the heron survey, and if the weather is decent and we have an ounce of energy left over at the end of the day, we usually walk around to see what other birds we can spot. Fall migration has definitely begun, because we saw lots of warblers in semi-fall plumage on Tuesday. We had our Peterson "Confusing Fall Warbler" page bookmarked for easy access, and I was pleased when I spotted a juvenile Chestnut-sided Warbler, which looks quite different from the distinctive adult male of spring.
But our favorite new (for us) finds were a Little Blue Heron and a Wilson's Phalarope. They look a lot like other shorebirds, except that they spend more time floating in the water to look for food rather than walking along in shallow water. Phalaropes are known for spinning around in the water to draw prey to the surface. The one we saw kept flying around in circles above the pond, chasing a larger Lesser Yellowlegs.
I particularly enjoy walking gingerly along the tiny plants of a quiet mudflat in the late afternoon, with Least Sandpipers scattering in front of my feet almost like little crabs. It feels almost like an open, though extremely scaled-down, tundra, flat and deserted. I can just hear someone saying, "What do you mean, tundra? This spit is about 30 feet long, smells like low tide, is surrounded by marsh grass, and besides, it's 80 degrees out!" I don't know; it just does! I don't even mind my shoes getting muddy.
This Wilson's Phalarope is in non-breeding plumage, like the one we saw
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This morning was the first fallish weather day of the year. I walked up to the Columbia Farmer's Market, as I hear it might be raining too hard tomorrow to make the trip down to the one at 97th St. And besides, I was on a birthday cake mission--I needed beets. Beets and ice cream.
The wind was whipping up bits of leaves and swirling them in circles. No colorful, whole leaves yet, of course. I think this wind is from a storm offshore. Still, it was all I could do not to buy pumpkins and butternut squash. I need to see what turns up in my vegetable share first. But beets are fallish enough for now.
This afternoon we've been baking the cake. During our time in the kitchen, we've been listening to the American Quartet and the Cello Concerto, and C.Z. does a running commentary. "The violins don't even play here for six whole minutes...Ooh, listen to that trill. Don't you like that part? I would never have thought of putting a trill there...Oh, don't worry about trying to heroically scrape all the batter into the pan before the end of the movement. This cadence material lasts forever. He tacked it on at the end of composing...You like that part? That's an oboe. See, don't you want to rent me an oboe? I promise I'll learn that part for you!...And this part is really hard! Dvorak isn't always fun for strings to play, but he's so perky you don't care." During breaks, C.Z. sight reads Dvorak. I guess she's trying to get all this extra sight-reading energy out of her system because she has her first regular lesson this afternoon, and she knows she has to whip her old pieces back into shape for her make-up jury.
The cake is in the oven. Spaghetti prep time, and then the lesson!
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If I'm not back for a while, it's because we're starting school. I do have more to say. I always do!
(All images from Wikipedia Commons.)
3 comments:
What fun to see the birds migrating over to you. We have the Wilson's Phalarope and Lesser Yellowlegs through the summer and then must say our good byes in the fall.
Beets....I have a row of them that I need to start eating.
I love hearing about the music you listen to.
Jody
Oh, my: We used to eat at Grimaldi's when it was still Patsy's. We lived in Brooklyn and walked that lovely bridge countless times. How I love that walk. Thanks for taking us along on your city adventures!
Jody, I think the Phalarope and L. Yellowlegs have been around for a while and will probably leave here soon, too; it's just that we've never been to the side of this vast pond where the Phalarope hangs out before.
One thing I like about Jamaica Bay is that many of the ducks there get their colorful plumage in the winter, thus making for interesting birding in the winter, while there's not much going on warbler-wise.
And June, was Grimaldi's once Patsy's? We used to eat at a Patsy's on the Upper East Side, and I knew there was one in Brooklyn. I think there must be a rather complex genealogy at work there somewhere, as there sometimes is with New York businesses (like H & H Bagels, for instance). Thanks for the tip! I'll look into it.
And then there's Totonno's, another special pizza place. Did you ever eat there?
One thing I like about biking for pizza is that you get a rest and refueling halfway through the trip! And you're right, it is a lovely bridge. Did you live in Park Slope, Williamsburg?
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