Why? Because I Like Them!

““M-I-C
See you real soon!
K-E-Y
Why? Because we like you!”
”

— Mickey Mouse Club Alma Mater

I take a lot of photos, and I have been going through them and have found quite a few that I think I should share. I have tried to come up with a theme for a blog posting. Are all the subjects birds? Well, most are, but there is a bunny. Are the birds taking a bath? Well, some are, but some are perching. Are the photos all from spring migration? No, not really. The earliest photo is from January, the latest from June 3. Were all taken in Central Park? Well, most of them, but two on Staten Island and one in Peekskill, NY.

So what do all these photos have in common? I like them!

Sometimes we just need to see some photos that interest us and make us happy. So here are some photos that have brought me joy.

This first photo, of a young bald eagle perched on a yacht club piling, has been on my phone for months, but I have not yet posted it. There will be a blog showing Eagles on Ice, soon, I hope.

Bald eagle, Peekskill, NY, January 11

I like photos that tell a story, as these two photos do. I was at Mt. Loretto Unique Area on June 3, and there was a cottontail rabbit on the pavilion meadow, frozen in fear. Looking up, I saw the cause: a bald eagle perched at the top of a nearby tree. The eagle seemed to be watching the bunny. After I photographed the bunny, from a distance, I took one step closer and the bunny hopped to safety.

Frozen cottontail rabbit, Staten Island, June 3

Bald eagle watching frozen bunny, June 3

I missed a lot of spring migration, but I was fortunate to see and photograph several pine warblers in Central Park. Here are four photos of three pine warblers, the first taken in February at the feeders, the second (same bird) at the feeders, on April 13. The other two birds were photographed at Belvedere Castle, also on April 13.

A trip to the Pool in Central Park on May 25 was rewarded with photos of a green heron and a black-crowned night heron. The slide show below shows the green heron.

Black-crowned night heron, Central Park, May 25

Black-crowned night heron, May 25

I am very fond of bathing birds. These photos are splish-splash photos, most taken at what birders call the “bathing rock,” which is just south of the Pool in Central Park.

Very clean gray catbird, the Pool, Central Park, May 25

Cedar waxwing, Central Park, May 25

American robin, Central Park, May 25

Baltimore oriole, Central Park, May 19

Baltimore oriole, Central Park, May 25

American goldfinch, Central Park, May 19

Hermit thrush, Central Park, April 13

Sometimes a bird poses enough that I take a lot of photos and then I have to choose one. Sometimes choosing just one gives me a headache, and I end up posting two!

Northern flicker, Central Park, April 13

Red-winged blackbird, Central Park, May 25

Northern cardinal, Central Park, April 13

Northern flicker, April 13

Red-winged blackbird, May 25

Northern cardinal, April 13

One nice thing about having a Web site and a blog is that I can be very selfish about what I post. The real joy in photographing birds, by the way, comes from actually being outside in a park or on a beach, watching these birds be birds. So when I like a photo, I probably have memories of taking the photo that you can’t know, but that to me come through in the picture. The nuthatch and sparrow below are birds that I spent some time watching, and I hope I captured enough personality of each bird to share my joy in watching them.

White-breasted nuthatch, Central Park, April 13

White-throated sparrow, Central Park, April 13

I put together a slide-show video where you can watch all these birds, plus a few more, fly by while listening to a Chopin etude.

I imagine I will be posting more “Mickey Mouse Club” photos in the future, since I edit photos when I get around to them and sometimes just need to put them out there. Coming soon on the themed-blog calendar, I hope: Eagles on Ice, Van Gogh’s Flowers at the New York Botanical Garden, more entries in the Jamaica Bay series, beach baby photos from Nickerson Beach, and even more eagle photos. If you want to be notified when the next blog is published, sign up below.

Tulips in the Wind

Before New York was New York, it was New Netherlands. The Dutch established New Amsterdam, the provincial capital, at the southern tip of Manhattan in 1624. New Amsterdam gave way to New York when the English took it over in 1664, not long after "tulip mania" had arrived and then collapsed in the Netherlands.

Red and yellow tulip, Green-Wood Cemetery, May 5, 2022

Yellow tulips near the Boathouse, Central Park

Purple tulip, Green-Wood Cemetery

All this history came to mind this spring when I photographed and filmed the glorious tulips in Central Park, on Cross Bay Boulevard, and in Green-Wood Cemetery in New York City in April and May. The first day I began to videotape the tulips in Shakespeare Garden in Central Park, the wind was blowing the tulips in magical ways. The gardeners this year created beds of multicolored hybrids, which I documented in a video, “Tulips in the Wind.” The music, by Chopin, is exquisitely performed by Olga Gurevich (obtained from MusOpen.org, a royalty-free music source).

I took hundreds of photos of the tulips, and I offer them here. They were taken April 16 through May 12. There were times looking at these photos that I thought I was experiencing my own tulip mania, and I imagined I was at Keukenhof.

The photos in the groupings below were included in the video.