Lunch With the Crow

I've always had trouble photographing crows. They see me coming and despite my attempts to approach casually, they always pick up and leave before I get within snapping distance. So I was ignoring a crow one blue morning a few weeks ago as I walked to the edge of Pier 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park. I passed the lovely wildflower meadow on Pier 6 pictured here. The crow was calling from a high perch as I reached my favorite bench. Click to enlarge.

I was not even going to try to take that crow's picture. I unwrapped the lox cream cheese bagel I'd brought for lunch.

Then I settled in to watch the boat traffic on the East River; here's a nice red tug heading north past lower Manhattan.

The next thing I knew, that crow had landed really close and was looking at me. After a minute it came closer. I thought briefly of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds before realizing it was looking at the bagel on the bench beside me.

It turns out crows really like lox cream cheese bagels.

And they like to keep clean. Between bites, it flew to a fence railing and wiped the cream cheese off its beak.

Last seen flying toward Governor's Island. Something tells me he's going to become a regular lunch companion at Pier 6.

Happy Mother's Day

Coming Soon

I'm going to be in places without Internet service for a week or two, so I'm posting a preview of coming attractions. This crow is the subject of an upcoming blog -- maybe this Sunday but possibly the next. 

The story will also feature this delicious lox cream cheese bagel. 

And be set against the lovely background of Brooklyn Bridge Park on Pier 6.
Click to enlarge and stay tuned. 

Spring Flowers

"People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us." Iris Murdoch 

"Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems by heart."
Rainer Maria  Rilke 

"The flower is the poetry of reproduction." Jean Giraudoux. 

April

A song sparrow, Melospiza melodia, getting its feathers ruffled by the wind. For comfort about how cold and rainy it's been this month, a Portuguese proverb: A cold and moist April fills the cellar and fattens the cow. 

Happy Easter

A Spring Day

I saw this American robin with wings stretched out soaking up sun in the park. My camera click disturbed him  and he folded up and flew away. It was a great day to appreciate spring with blue sky, warm sunlight, and soft breezes reminding me of this poem by Billy Collins. (Click the photo to enlarge.) 

Today

If ever there were a spring day so perfect, 

so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw 

open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,

indeed, to rip the little door from its jamb, 

a day when the cool brick paths 

and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight

that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight

on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants 

from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,

holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,

well, today is just that kind of day.

And here's a picture of my neighborhood to prove it! A path to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade with the skyline of lower Manhattan across the East River.