A modeling fee

It was another quiet day, stark. When it gets cool I carry nuts and seeds. The downy woodpecker watched, but didn't come down for a nut. The sparrow posed very nicely for close-ups. I felt a few nuts were in order, a professional fee. The sparrow was by my feet when I placed the nuts on the higher railing. It saw what was being offered and flew up for the snack.

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Out of sight

Where did all the little birds disappear to? I don't know where they went. But I know why they left. One immature red-tail hawk on the prowl.

And would you believe this.... after more than a year of blogging I finally figured out how to get some text first, then pictures. I'm a VERY slow techie learner.

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Curiously quiet

No robins. After having seen hundreds of robins there were none yesterday. In fact, it was eerily quiet in the park. Maybe one nuthatch, one chickadee, two finches, one cormorant, no robins....... lots of silence except for sparrows dining. Sometimes, instead of looking for variety, the day becomes a day observing who's doing what.

It was at Strawberry Field that a movement caught my eye. I thought I had seen a different kind of sparrow and decided to stand in the grass patch and wait. If it was in that area it would reappear. The house sparrows were dining on seeds in plants that had the soft "feathers", like hunting for food in pillow stuffing. Some of the food was down in the grass, salad. After about twenty minutes the different sparrow, a song sparrow came into view for about three seconds. The other sparrows are bolder, in the open, but the song sparrow is more elusive.

One hawk soaring on high. One downy woodpecker in the distance. It was a very quiet bird day.

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More berries and a football

I was chatting with some children when movement in the berry tree caught my eye. It helps to be standing on eye-level with the berries right in between branches. Cardinal dining. Over on the next lawn a dog was playing football. It was a quiet day, but still fun.

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Hundreds of robins

After a long stretch seeing no robins suddenly there are hundreds all picking the berries till now ignored. There has to be a rhythm to when the berries ripen. These are ripe for the pickin' now and the robins have arrived to dine. The robins must be migrating to be in such vast flocks.

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Always something

"It's quiet"."
"Nothing is happening."

When birders report that all is quiet I settle for a stroll. Let's see how much nothing there really is. My first stop at the stream was nothing, but the second stop was a great terrific, a fox sparrow taking a bath, a solitary hermit thrush and then the Gang arrived, cedar waxwings. They stormed in in a sweep, drank and departed just as fast. Or maybe it was the hawk that flew overhead that caused the rapid departure. It was a fine something afternoon.

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Fitness training?

There is dredging going on at the 72nd street end of the lake, two fences in place. A raccoon obstacle course. Where there's a will there's a way, up and over, up and over and into the ivy.

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