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
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
Every time I travel south, I look forward to seeing pelicans once again. Some birds are just irresistibly idiosyncratic, and pelicans are. (Herons and egrets are, too.) Everything about them is fascinating to watch…
… the way they are revealed by the gray dawn sitting silently on pilings
… the way they fly in formation as the sun rises out of the sea
… the way they skim low over the water
… the way they sit right on the dock, at ease with their human neighbors
(These photos were taken at Glover’s Reef Atoll, Belize; at Amelia Island, Florida; and near Fort Myers, Florida. More photos from those locations are respectively here, here, and here.)
By Vladimir Brezina
With a white coat of freshly fallen snow hiding for the moment the drabness of winter, it was a bright, festive day in Central Park yesterday.
.
.
Everyone was out having fun!
Everyone was in a happy, outgoing mood. And so, more than usual, it was a day for getting together with other members of your species…
Posted in Nature, New York City
Tagged Animals, Birds, Central Park, Dogs, Manhattan, New York City, Photography, Snow, Sparrows, Squirrels
... 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 