By Vladimir Brezina
Performers: Two Brown Pelicans, Pelecanus occidentalis
(It’s nice to think that they were a male and a female. But it’s very hard to tell male and female pelicans apart by external appearance alone.)
Venue: A piling just off John’s Pass Boardwalk, Madeira Beach, Florida (near St. Petersburg, on the Gulf coast)
Date: February 23, 2012, as the sun set…
By Vladimir Brezina
Like everyone who travels often enough by airplane, I’ve seen breathtaking things from the plane’s window: towering cloud formations, lightning storms, the brilliant colors of sunrise and sunset, and the map-like pattern of land and water sliding into view below.
But until yesterday, I’ve never taken out my camera. Looking out through a misted, scratched window at a cramped angle not under my control, the photographic situation didn’t seem too promising.
Still, I’ve always been tempted in one case—when landing in New York City. When landing at LaGuardia Airport, especially, if the wind is right the plane flies along the length of Manhattan, offering spectacular low-altitude views of the city.
So yesterday, when it looked like we were following that flight path once again, I got out my camera. And I was not disappointed!
Posted in New York City, Photography, Travel
Tagged Air Flight, Airplane, Manhattan, New York City, Photography
By Vladimir Brezina
This week’s Photo Challenge is Indulge.
I think the photo says it all…
Other nice interpretations that I’ve seen:
Posted in Life, Photography
Tagged Indulge, Photography, postaday, postaweek, postaweek2012, Weekly Photo Challenge
By Vladimir Brezina
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[For best viewing, click on the HD icon in the top right corner, then expand to full screen by clicking on the icon in the bottom right corner]
Video courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center:
This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 30 on board the International Space Station. The sequence of shots was taken January 29, 2012 from 05:33:11 to 05:48:10 GMT, on a pass from just southwest of Mexico to the North Atlantic Ocean, northeast of Newfoundland. This pass begins looking over Central America towards the Gulf of Mexico and the southeastern United States. As the ISS travels northeast over the gulf, some southeastern United States cities can be distinguished, like New Orleans, Mobile, Jacksonville, and Atlanta. Continuing up the east coast, some northeastern states, like Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City stand out brightly along the coastline. The Aurora Borealis shines in the background as the pass finishes near Newfoundland.
And notice the firmament of fixed stars unchanging above…
This is just one of the many amazing videos at this site.
Posted in Nature, Science and Technology
Tagged International Space Station, Night, Satellite Images, Space
By Vladimir Brezina
To survive and to thrive in the big city, it sometimes seems that New York City’s wildlife has diversified to fill much the same niches as the city’s human inhabitants…
Some specialize in being decorative
Some are charming hustlers
Others still are quick small-time opportunists
The hustlers just won’t take no for an answer!
Many establish societies, in plain sight yet with their own secret rules, in the interstices of the city
But all come to watch the sunset along the river…
(All photos taken yesterday in Central and Riverside Parks, Manhattan.)
Posted in Nature, New York City
Tagged Animals, Birds, Duck, Gull, New York City, Photography, Pigeon, Sparrow, Squirrel
By Vladimir Brezina
This week’s Photo Challenge is Down. “We spend a lot of time looking ahead, looking from left to right before we cross the street, looking into the sky for Superman, but not a lot of time looking down. What do you see?”
As it happens, Johna recently posted some thoughts on that theme, and I added a few photos that could serve again here…
But what first popped into my head just now was quite a different sense of “Down”.
So here is “Down” in both senses!
Posted in Nature, Photography
Tagged Birds, Canada Geese, Down, Photography, postaday, postaweek, postaweek2012, Weekly Photo Challenge
By Vladimir Brezina
By Johna Till Johnson
(With additional text, charts, and photos by Vladimir Brezina)
This happened in July 2011.
The day dawned clear and bright, and we were excited: This was the day we were going to circumnavigate Monomoy Island. Located at the “elbow” of Cape Cod, Monomoy juts out some eight miles, dividing Nantucket Sound from the Atlantic Ocean. It offers a nice spectrum of paddling opportunities: The protected, shallow water of the Sound on one side, and the deep swells of the Atlantic on the other.
And then there is Monomoy Point, the very end of the island, where the two waters meet.
“Kayakers have died there,” Vlad informed me cheerfully over breakfast.
By Vladimir Brezina
This week’s Photo Challenge is Regret.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth…
Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
Posted in Literature, Photography
Tagged Photography, postaday, postaweek, postaweek2012, Regret, Robert Frost, Weekly Photo Challenge, Woods
By Johna Till Johnson
(Photos by Vladimir Brezina)
Since we posted our Red Hook adventure a couple of weeks ago, readers have been asking for more. So here’s a real adventure, which until now, for reasons that will become obvious, we’ve been a bit reluctant to post in full…
We’ve drawn upon the initial couple of hours of this story for a previous post. But at the point where that post left off, the adventure was just beginning!
Two further comments: First, we regret that photos are a little thin in this post. During most of these events, photography would have been difficult, or inadvisable.
And second, this is an example of people going “above and beyond” to be human, even when it could potentially threaten them professionally. So to protect the well-intentioned—and much-appreciated—innocent, all names, dates, and other identifying details have been modified or obscured.
This happened sometime last spring…
Posted in Kayaking, New York City
Tagged Brooklyn, Hypothermia, Kayaking, Marine Mammals, New York City, New York Harbor, Police, Porpoise, Seal, Tidal Current, Verrazano Narrows Bridge, Wind
... kayaked the waters around New York for more than 15 years in his red Feathercraft folding kayak. He was originally from (the former) Czechoslovakia and lived in the U.K. and California before settling down in New York. He was a neuroscientist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. He died in 2016.
... is a kayaker and technology researcher at Nemertes Research. She's an erstwhile engineer, particle physicist, and science fiction writer. She was born in California and has lived in Italy, Norway, Hawaii, and a few other places. She currently resides in New York City.
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Wind Against Current