Who was Marcus Garvey?

July 11th 2019

That is the question that crossed my mind, as I crossed the park this morning.  Turns out he was a Jamaican-born activist of Black Rights, Black Brotherhood and established many a business in order to improve the lot of African Americans.  Seems to have supported the KKK, (why???), and lived in Harlem when he moved to the US. A colourful and controversial character.

This 20 acre park is located between 120th and 124th street, and has oak trees and sparrows and starlings in plenty.

This art installation is made from used tires.  The mound seen at the rear is part of a schist/large rock around which the park is built.  Supposedly, they could not remove it, to extend 5th Avenue, and proposed a tunnel through it - but it did not get built.

Need to find out what this spectacular tree is.

Are those flowers I spied, on the Oak tree?

Birds of a feather bathing together!

The squirrel seems to have figured how to work the water fountain.

I tried unsuccessfully to reach the Harlem river, but came up against the Harlem River  Drive and the bridge to Randall island, which seemed "uncrossable" on foot at 125th.  I would need to trudge up to 128th.

With a midday sun overhead, and hot concrete underfoot, the extra walk did not seem appealing at all, and I returned, catching a row of maples instead.

Maple leaves against the blue sky 

And another outdoor art piece catches my eye

Brown-belted bumblebees

Harlem, New York

I am on the 19th floor in Harlem, and the midday air is usually filled with the wailing of ambulance sirens in the streets below, and a more persistent and loud buzz closer by.  Little black and brown blobs would whizz by my startled nose, and land on the balcony railings and take off once again before I could get a good glimpse of them.

Today morning, me and my iPhone were quick on the draw, and I caught this beauty just as it was about to take off.

                                                       Brown-belted Bumble Bee

 (Bombus griseocollis)

I did not think they would be seen so high up in the atmosphere.  These brown-belted bumblebees are important flower and fruit pollinators for the region, and they are probably the reason that those hibiscuses are flowering merrily and happily!

Sharp-Eatman nature photography has an ID guide for the wild bees of New York

Identification Information:  These bees can be best identified by their trim "crew cut" fur and by the belt of brown hair that usually appears near the front end (on the second segment) of their black abdomens, just behind a narrow yellow band.  Brown-belted bumble bees have  black legs and dark transparent wings.  Their heads are black, sometimes with yellow markings, and they have large black eyes.  The bees' yellow thoraxes (mid-sections) may or may not have a black spot at the center.  Queen bees may lack the brown belt.  Queens are substantially larger than other members of this species but have the same distinctive large eyes and  trim fur.

Unlike other bumble bees, brown-belted bumble bees have short tongues.  They thus are unable to access nectar and pollen from deep-throated flowers.  They prefer blossoms that have flat landing platforms containing multiple florets, such as milkweed, black-eyed Susans and thistles.   Instead of expending energy by flying from one flower to the next, brown-belted bumble bees can walk from floret to floret, efficiently gathering a small amount of nectar from each. The brown-belted bumble bees shown here were gathering nectar in this fashion from coneflowers, common milkweed and swamp milkweed.  These bumble bees also feed on goldenrod, toadflax and thistles along park trails and in Stone Barns' gardens.  They first appear in our area in mid-March and remain throughout the summer.

The Hibiscus suits their short tongues!

Walking to the Hudson

July 3rd 2019

Set off down 120th towards the Hudson.  530 in the evening, and it was still warm.  New Yorkers were out in their shorts and summer wear, and the kids seemed to be out of school and in the playgrounds.

The tall buildings kept me in the shade, as I crossed Malcolm Boulevard, Frederick Douglas and Manhattan Ave, to arrive at the steps of Morningside Park.  Dog walkers and dogs of all shapes and sizes.  

Climbed the hill via the steps through the park, and it was Columbia University territory.  Old buildings with impressive facades.

Teachers College

Renovations and the Riverside Church spire behind

The church is magnificent - the tallest church in the US!  Started in 1927 and completed in 1930.

Commissioned by Rockefeller.  April 4th 1967, Martin Luther King made a speech against Vietnam War here.

Chanced upon the Grant memorial, the final resting place of the 18th President of the US, Ulysses Grant and his wife Julia Grant.

General in the Union Army during the Civil War, he was a young president, and it was his wish to be buried in NY and not DC.

Magnificent oaks all around

And Gingko trees as well

Characteristic leaves of the gingko

The upper end of the Riverside drive

More steps, downwards to the river

And I was below the bridge....

George Washington Bridge across the Hudson, in to NJ.  that evening, the Lincoln Tunnel was closed due to an accident, and it was the 4th Of July the next day.... the roads were filled with standstill cars, and I was glad to bet walking.

The USS Baylander - now a museum ship - served in the Vietnam War.

The Birding Walk caught my eye...

The beautiful and clean Hudson River.  The water was clear!

 The sun was still strong when I reached the Hudson, and I was impressed with the beautiful planned cycling track and walking path along the banks of the river.  Both were well used even at that time of the day.  Bikers were speeding down the path.  (Later I came to know that there are accidents due to speeding cyclists - and in fact someone we knew fell and broke his jaw as a result of this.). So beware of the cyclists as well!

All across Harlem are these sidewalk protections - to keep pedestrians safe when the building is being worked upon.  What a great idea.  And here I am in India, where there are more pedestrians but yet with fewer pavements and every time there is a construction, the pavement gets taken over, and the pedestrian has to fend for him/herself, weaving in between the traffic.  Makes me wonder which country is more favourable for the common man. 

820 in the evening, and the sun was slowly sinking, and the glass windows of the building seemed to be on fire.

Back home, and the sun was setting behind the Riverside Church spire.  A satisfying walk, rounded up with some great dinner.

Discovering Harlem Meer

My first glimpse - Meer is Dutch for "lake"

Walking down 5th Avenue at Harlem, NY
Birdsong all around.  A cheerful start to my Sunday.

Am American Robin stopped and stared.  I was the visitor, distracting it from breakfast, which was in plenty on the meadow floor.

It seemed to want to give me a tour of the lake.

Nutter's battery?!  Hmmm.  I saw a pile of stone, didn't pay much attention.  Turns out it was part of some fortifications from a few centuries ago.

The park was bathed in sunshine, and the air was filled with darting and chirping house sparrows.  All those theories floating around in Chennai about cellphone towers are unfounded for sure.   

A Canada Goose sunned itself along with some Mallard

The city keeps a respectful distance.  The Central Park boundaries are sacrosanct.  No encroachments, non-negotiable.

Any number of spots would make for a good painting.

A Gray Catbird seemed to want to give me the once over.  Fixing me with its gaze.

I will be back I'm sure

B for Bougainvillea

Oh yes, learn that spelling!

All over my city, as the sun blazes, Bougainvillea are running riot, scrambling up trees, and filling the skies with colour - orange, pink and white.  Their joy is tumbling over the city's walls, cascading down from terraces, making the dreariest of buildings look bright and pretty.

My favourite used to be the ones lining the walls of the Olcott school on Besant Avenue, and they were a traffic-stopping riot, quite literally.  Motorists would stop to take pictures and selfies.

Neighbouring Pondy is even better.  All through the French Quarter, the yellow walls, blue doors and pink bougainvillea make for great compositions.

An Ikebana composition in nature - brown lines and masses of pink

Through a large portion of the year, we don't give them a second look - thorny vines, with regular small heart-shaped leaves, with a few flowers here and there.  Come summer however and they thrive like no other.

They actually need good sunshine and very little water!  No wonder they do well in our summers, even though they have come from south America.

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And all those pretty colours are actually modified leaves - bracts.  Those little whites are the flowers, and trios of them are usually surrounded by these papery, colourful bracts.

In the right foreground are the buds before they open into those pretty flowers.

Let me see what unusual colours I spot this summer.

The snipes of Karapakkam

20th April 2019

I make life difficult for myself.  I have to go and see those snipes, but I cannot take the car all by myself, so I need to find company to justify those carbons in the air, and I am finding low cooperation from the family, and so it has meant that despite Sagarika's constant nagging, bribing (with those lovely pictures), and whining, I did not go to see them.  (She claims she was after me since February, but she loves to be technical and specific about these matters.)

After extracting a promise that I will not malinger or wander or get  a heatstroke, (I am known to do all three), my husband decided to be the other warm body as we set off to see the Snipes of Karapakkam.

In the process we saw the relentless march of construction in the Pallikaranai marsh, as we followed instructions into some interior roads where every few plots were empty and marshy and supporting swamp hens, pond herons and warblers and sunbirds, while multi-storeyed buildings and debris filled more and more of the wetland.

We parked in one of the lanes and walked around stopping at each marshy plot.  Flashes of purple as swamp hens fluttered from one plot to the other.  A watercock walked into the reeds as did a bittern.  A plain prinia flitted among the reeds, calling sharply as it swayed precariously on the slim blade.  A purple-rumped sunbird flashed across heading for the wildflowers that were growing in the edges.

But no snipe did we spot.  We reached the end of the road, and suddenly it was all marsh ahead.  We seemed to have reached the existing boundary of construction,  a road running south-north along the edge.  At the far end, we saw a gaggle of photographers and binocular-wielding humans and we knew that must be where the snipes are!  We hurried across and there they were, several of them, staring balefully and not doing very much.  The Greater Painted Snipes.  My first time.

GK was there and filled me in on some rather interesting aspects.  The female is well marked, brightly coloured and polyandrous.  She does the courting, and once the eggs are laid, it is the male that sits and takes care of the nest and brood while she goes out and forages!  As a result the male is dull coloured. Opposite of the usual rule of brightly coloured males.

This was my first sighting of the Snipes.  We also saw Common Snipes.  Supposedly the Painted Snipes are not "real" snipes", Common Snipes are.  The common snipe (Gallinago gallinago) does not have the role reversal of the Painted ones, and they are also more shy it appears.  They had a long straight bill and a mottled appearance.

Here are the pictures from Sagarika's visit - we did not have a camera.

 The Greater painted-snipe (Rostratula benghalensis) male, which is a duller brown and has that white breast band

The spectacular colourings of the female.  The eye patch looks like the letter P, doesn't it?

Sagarika pointed me to another interesting aspect of this bird.  It is the origin for the word "sniper".  According to Wikipedia, soldiers of British India used "to snipe", which meant they would go and hunt and shoot these plump rather slow-moving birds.  And these "sportsmen" (whats so sporting about it beats me completely), were referred to as snipers.

The Chennai sun was out by now, and the crowd of birdwatchers thinned, and we left too, not before seeing the aerial antics of some green beeeaters.

Chennai summer colours

Bougainvillae "tree"

Copper Pods and Indian Ash

The trees are abloom
Yellows, whites and pinks
Happy kids
out of school.