what about the plastic animals?

Berries In The Park

There are blackberries growing in Morningside Park.  I hadn't noticed them before.  There's raspberries and elderberries too. All look to be doing well this year.

Turtle Town

Turtles love the Morningside Park pond!  There usually are a couple dozen or more sunning themselves in the late morning.  Most of the turtles are red-eared sliders, which were all pets, or descendents of pets, that have been released into the pond.

Items Seen While Walking Down the Stairs This Afternoon

Any guesses as to what that thing is in the top photo?  What kind of berry is that?  What's that on the rock?  Look closer. If you lost your pet bird on or before Wednesday please call that number.  No prank calls, please.

Not Batman

Perhaps a few too many beers were consumed at Harlem Tavern for me to put up an involved post.  In other bird news the goose couple at work were showing off their goslings this morning.  All eight or nine of them.  There were too many of the downy little critters moving around on the lawn to get an accurate count.

Yet More Markers

My previous post about the Morningside Park markers was misleading.  I was confused!  The marker at top above is between the two shown on that previous post. The marker in the middle was difficult to see from the trail but it is among the southern group of markers.  At bottom is a wider view of the arrow pointing at 82 degrees in this earlier post.  All the markers are about the same distance away from the upper trail through the park.

Last Pair of Arrows

I've now scouted all the trails in Morningside Park, finding two more markers with arrows in them.  Both of these are on the upper trail between 120th and 121st Streets.  Unlike the other markers these two are just east of the trail. Even though these last two markers are only a hundred feet or so apart, their arrows point in almost opposite directions.

More Morningside Markers

On Sunday mornings I'll often walk over to Morningside Heights to get the paper, visit the farmer's market, and perhaps get a chai latte and pastry from Oren's.  Sometimes that trip takes less than an hour and sometimes, like today, I start wandering around and the trip takes three hours.

Following up from last week I located two more markers this morning.  The marker at top is close to the 112th and Morningside Drive entrance to the park.  The marker in the second photo is the one I referred to in the previous post.  It is close to the 114th and Morningside entrance.  Unlike the arrow at 115th, which is not next to a park entrance, these two are pointing in the same general direction.  All three markers are on the west side of the stone border that lines the walking path.

Morningside Park Mystery Marker

Happy Spring!  Or should I say Happy Summer?

Today I've got a mystery.  There is a marker with a metal arrow embedded in it in Morningside Park at the bottom of the grand staircase at 116th St.  There's enough metal in the marker to throw off my phone's compass.  The bottom photo is more accurate - the arrow is pointing westward.  Why is the marker there and why is it pointing toward the west?

To confuse matters, there's a similar marker a few hundred feet to the south that has an arrow pointing in a different direction.  I would show you a picture of that marker but this is not a professional blog where I think deeply about these sorts of things before putting them online.

A quick Google search reminds me that I wrote about yet another nearby marker six years ago. 

Yellow Flower Update

The daffodils and whatever that tree is with the yellow flowers are blooming in Morningside Park.  Bunches of daffodils have been blooming here and there in the park for a couple of months now.  Yesterday was the first time I saw a whole grove of them in bloom.

One Year of Morningside Park

If you follow my Flickr account you may have noticed that I've been taking photos of the same spot, where the upper trail crosses the 120th street steps, in Morningside Park for some time.  I just passed the one year mark so it's time to look at the annual cycle.

At the beginning I didn't have a plan and I missed almost the entire month of April (and the green up of vegetation), but eventually I settled for taking a picture every 7-10 days.  Sometimes the photos were taken more frequently to catch things like the recent snow melt.  Almost all the pictures were taken around 7:45 a.m. when I was walking to the shuttle.

If you watch the slide show, or if you want to take your time pondering the individual photos, you'll see lots of white, brown and green, rain, fog, a few people walking, one person sleeping, the damage after Hurricane Irene and following the October snow.  Enjoy!