Central Park: It's Photogenic!

Originally published May 2013

The flowers, the birds, the raccoons and all the wildlife that takes us away from the bustling city, if only for a few hours. Central Park is amazing this spring, and I've been so fortunate to take a lot of pictures. I post almost daily on Facebook (feel free to friend me and let me know you saw my pictures on this site), but here are some of my favorites. I love watching all the animals. This Cooper's hawk was stunning, so high in the tree, so watchful.

The black-crowned night herons and the great egret are making themselves at home in Central Park. So are cormorants and the turtles (the invasion continues), with the help of bull frogs.

A barred owl settled in for the day at the top of a tree in the Pinetum, and in April I snapped its picture before it moved on. And there are black-crowned night herons at the Pond and the Lake. It has been a joy to photograph them and watch them fly.

I've been able to watch the egrets and the cormorants diving for fish and successfully catching dinner. After all, it is nature, and this is what they do to survive.









 

The egrets have been favorite subjects all spring. They are beautiful birds that can hold a pose for what seem like hours.

Seeing a bullfrog both at the Lake and the Pond has had me singin' Joy to the World with Three Dog Night. This Jeremiah was at the Pond.

On April 24, my Mom's birthday, I found a single duckling with its doting parents at the Pond. Unfortunately, I never saw it again, or any other ducklings. But nonetheless, the shots are worthy of a very loud "Awwwwww!!!"

Of course, on Mom's birthday, I was looking for cardinals, too.

There have been gorgeous flowers and foliage in the park this spring. These fiddlehead fronds were fascinating to see before they opened up.

Warbler season has been exciting and frustrating. I'm not quick enough to get good shots but am thrilled to see the birds. This is a palm warbler, one of the first shots of a warbler I was able to get. A yellowthroat is to the right.

The raccoons have been a source of delight and concern. Delight, because they have the cutest faces and behavior. Concern, because I spent one evening trying to help a raccoon that had fallen from a tree onto the walkway south of the Pond (near Central Park South) and was very injured and frightened. These pictures are of a mama raccoon and her baby, high in a tree in the Ramble (I try to stop by regularly to see how she's doing). I have taken a lot of video of raccoons near Oak Bridge at dusk, and hope to post something soon.

Spring Is Springing in Central Park

Originally published April 10, 2013

The flowers are blooming, the birds are singing, and Central Park is so alive with great subjects for photography. I have been posting albums almost daily on Facebook (feel free to friend me and let me know you saw my pictures on this site), but I want to share some of the best pictures in The Chronicler's Tales. On April 9, I finally got some good pictures of the little saw-whet owl, which was resting in a tree at the top of the Shakespeare Garden.

He finally opened his eyes, and I snapped away.

The flowers have been beautiful this year, and I have enjoyed trying to capture them in closeup. The magnolia tree near Belvedere Castle had such a wonderful fragrance.

I especially loved photographing the orange tulips in the Shakespeare Garden. The bee and the ant were an added bonus. And I think the flower on the right, below, could have been a Georgia O'Keeffe canvas. Is it a Christmas rose, that flower that has been featured on the covers of the PM Saga? I like to think so, even if it isn't! The purple petals are just too tempting for the Christmas tales.

The flowering trees have been so stunning, the color and beauty almost too much to absorb.

One of the most interesting afternoons I had was watching a red-tailed hawk sitting in a tree in the bird feeder area. Often when a hawk is in the neighborhood, the birds and squirrels hide out, and there is barely a sound to be heard. But with this hawk, the birds kept coming to the feeders and the hawk stayed in the tree, turning his head every now and then to look below. I watched for about two hours, then the hawk flew down. At first we thought he had caught a squirrel, then realized he had caught his talons on a stick and had the hardest time breaking free of the branch. It at first seemed comical, then sort of sad. Someone said the hawk was one of two that had been poisoned and rehabilitated, but perhaps there was some brain damage. At any rate, it was exciting to see the hawk, and to watch it move and fly.

Some of the most beautiful birds in the park are the woodpeckers. The park has red-bellied, hairy and downy woodpeckers, and I've seen all three at the feeder area. Often I will hear the red-bellied high in a tree near the Lake, and will stop to watch him work his way through the bark.







 

The cardinals, blue jays, goldfinches and other birds throughout the park are so fascinating to watch. There are so many lovely people I meet in the park, who are so devoted to protecting the birds and the Central Park environment.








 

One of the most interesting birds I've seen has been the cormorant. I had seen them in China when the fishermen went out at night in their boats, but it was so exciting to see them in Central Park and see their bright blue eyes.

Watching the turtles take sun has also been a fun pastime. They mass themselves on the shore of the Lake, the Reservoir, Turtle Pond, and the Pond. They are little tanks, stacking themselves, turtle on top of turtle, all baking and basking in the sunshine. Are they planning an assault on Belvedere Castle? Could be. But their progress has been very slow, so I am not panicking. Yet.

Weight Loss, Ducks and the Art of the Silly Video

Originally published Februrary 2013

A year ago, Jan. 29, 2012, to be precise, I decided to lose some weight. I had not really been fat. I am pretty tall, so the weight distributes pretty well. But I was straining a lot of my wardrobe, and I had some clothes that were taking up space in the bottom of my closet because I bought them thinking that some day I'd lose enough weight to fit into them.

When I quit smoking in 2000, my weight started inching up (literally), until I reached 180 on the scale. When I decided to lose weight, I weighed in at 177.5 pounds. I had been getting cast in a number of little films at that heavier weight, but I believed that I could still play those roles plus add more "professional" type roles if I were trimmer.

You can see from the picture on the right how I looked in the 1980s. I was pretty svelte then, and I liked that look. By the time I returned to acting in 2009, I was a bit heavier — more than 35 pounds heavier. As pictures of the roles I've done more recently show on my acting page, I didn't become obese, but I definitely wasn't thin. The photo to the left is from the set of Dinner at Desmond's, which was shot at the end of 2011. The weight was fine for the character, but not for my own self-image. And my doctor did tell me that my cholesterol levels could be better, and that losing 10 pounds would help.

I am not a good dieter. Over my many, many years of worrying about my weight, I have read books and talked to friends and joined groups to try to lose my excess pounds. I remember eating lots of protein on the Stillman diet when I was in high school (hard boiled eggs, cottage cheese, steak, chicken), and craving food after hearing my fellow dieters talk about it at Weight Watchers and Overeaters Anonymous meetings (I'd walk out of those meetings and rush for the nearest supermarket to buy brownie mix, then mix up a batch with cream cheese icing and eat the whole pan).

Continue reading on the Weight Loss, Ducks ... page.