Flowers, Art and Other Video Musings

I have recently been creating additions to the Another Silly Video by Susan Kirby series on YouTube. My previous posting includes a video ode to spring flowers and the New York Botanical Garden. Here are another two recent videos.

A Rainy Day Visit to the Cloisters is a brief tour of the iconic Metropolitan Museum of Art building in Fort Tryon Park in Manhattan. After living 45 years in New York City, I finally made my way up there on April 12. I set it to Medieval dance tunes performed by Paul Arden-Taylor. The museum doesn't want video taken inside, so I made this a video photo album.

The hawk pair at Grant's Tomb had a very successful breeding and nesting period. This video was shot April 12 and 15, as the Mama hawk appeared to be successfully feeding young hatchlings. However, as of the second week in May, there has been no signs of activity in the nest, and we fear the youngsters may have died or been killed.

Celebrating Spring! Two New Videos

Originally published April 2016

Contemplate This! Spring Into Bloom is a video designed to relieve your stress. It features the beautiful flowers of Central Park, the Cloisters and Riverside Park in Manhattan, and more flowers in Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn and the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx.

And speaking of the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx (and we were just speaking of it!), check out An Afternoon in the Gardens, which has flowers (of course), but also lots of birds and chipmunks.

There is now a page dedicated to the New York Botanical Garden, with lots of photos from that magical place.

Little Stick Hawk

Originally published February 29, 2016

This little hawk has been visiting Central Park for at least two weeks. The youngster hangs out around Strawberry Fields and the Bandshell, until chased out of those areas by the Beresford hawks. The hawk got the nickname because one day after getting harassed by blue jays and moving up several branches in a tree, he pulled off a small branch and flew to another tree, where he proceeded to flip it around with his talons, then wave it around in his beak. After several minutes of playing with the branch, he dropped it. You could almost read his mind as he looked down: "I dropped my stick. I dropped my stick. Now what?" His decision: to fly north over Bow Bridge, into the Ramble.

For more photos of Stick, visit the Red-Tailed Hawks page.

This Silly Video shows Stick from Feb. 3 through Feb. 23 as the youngster tries to survive in Central Park despite the blue jays and adult hawks that harass him. You can see how Stick got his name in the video on the Red-Tailed Hawks page.