Have a Duckie, Duckie Holiday!

Originally published December 2013

The 2013 Christmas tree, a Fraser fir, was named Duckie, after Woody the wood duck and all the ducks I've been privileged to watch all year. The tree is very, very tall, which makes me very grateful for an 11 foot ceiling.

Duckie has taken over the living room of the hovel, and with all the ornaments and tinsel, welcomes me with fragrance and joy each time I enter the apartment.

As has become a tradition, I visited Macy's Holiday Lane once the ornaments were on sale, and was so happy to get some nice new ones.

My theory is, there can never be too many ornaments or too much tinsel.

This year also meant baking cookies again, and they were particularly scrumptious. I made the famous pecan Snowball Cookies (if you scroll through the Previous Posts section below, you'll find a link to the recipe).

The other cookies were cranberry oatmeal. I use the Quaker Oats vanishing oatmeal cookies recipe, but substitute dried cranberries for raisins.

Duckie now stars in his own video, A Duckie Little Christmas, which you can watch below.

The walks continue in Central Park, and I have enjoyed taking photographs and making sure Woody and the mallards (and even a coot!) get lots of peanuts. After the New Year (and I really hope yours is extremely happy and satisfying), I will post more pictures from the amazing park that sits right in the middle of the greatest city in the world.

Patriotic Central Park — Another Silly Video by Susan Kirby

Originally published July 27, 2013

On July 4, I took a six-hour walk through Central Park. I took a lot of pictures and a lot of video. I've edited it into a new Another Silly Video by Susan Kirby (see Weight Loss, Ducks and the Art of the Silly Video). It features my favorite subjects: Woody the wood duck, the egret, the black-crowned night heron, mallards and their ducklings, cormorants, cardinals, blue jays and the ever-cute raccoons.

Below that, you'll find Another Silly Video, this one without music, and very short, of a duckling who would love to have an umbrella, but will use its mom if there's no other shelter around. It was filmed on Aug. 2 at the Pond in Central Park.

Please enjoy both videos, and "like" it if you do!

Some New Pictures

Originally published July 27, 2013

The Bronx Zoo, July 24, 2013

As I hope you will discover below and in previous postings, I have been taking a lot of photographs this year, and I have been sharing them on Facebook and on this site. In the Old Friends posting below, you'll see some of my favorites from the park, but I wanted to add some pictures from a visit to the Bronx Zoo on July 24, as well as a few pictures I've taken in Central Park since I posted Old Friends. As always, feel free to friend me on Facebook to see the daily postings, and feel free to drop me a line if you like these (chronicler@pmsaga.com).

The spotted leopards were stunning, and I was fortunate enough to shoot through the wire for the smaller shot, and to shoot through the glass for the first, wider shot (these are two different leopards). The red panda was pacing and pacing and pacing, and he seemed so very, very bored.

Continue reading the Bronx Zoo part of this posting on the At the Zoo page.

The Bronx Zoo has a butterfly house, and while it is not as full of butterflies as I would like, I did spot some nice ones. The photo below left was the best I took at the zoo, but to the right you'll see another butterfly from Central Park and a dragonfly from Central Park. I hope you scroll down further to see Just a Bit Buggy, and check out the Bugs and Butterflies page, which has even more bugs I've photographed.

New Pictures of Old and New Friends

The remainder of the pictures in this section were taken after I published Old Friends and If I Can't Have a Garden, I'll Take Central Park (see the archive). A blue heron visited the park last winter, and I did a Silly Video called My Blue Heron, which you can see at this link or on the Weight Loss, Ducks and the Art of the Silly Video page. I have photographed hawks before, and you can see pictures in some of the links in the archive and on the hawks page.

I am enamored of the lotus blossoms and the water lilies in Bethesda Fountain, and I have been trying to photograph them in various stages this summer. The lotus blossom shot was taken on July 27 with some of the best light I've seen. The water lilies were so strong, and I'm always thrilled to be reminded of Monet and Giverny.

There is a peach tree near the 77th Street entrance to the park on the west side, and I can't resist quote T. S. Eliot when I see it. You'll see pictures of the raccoons and the cardinals other places on this site, but these new shots I find particularly fun.