Winter Solstice in Riverside Park 2017

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT IS FEATURED IN VOL ONE

At an entrance to Riverside Park located at 72nd Street and Riverside Drive in NYC, there is a statue of Eleanor Roosevelt, which I've featured in prior entries here on Blogger.* I passed it again today as I made my way down to the Hudson River to watch this evening's winter solstice sunset.

If one enters the park from the statue, a short walk down a sidewalk takes you to a dog run where I happened upon a lone ghost holding a Jack-O-Lantern (as seen in the image directly below).

I came to the conclusion that this ghost had not gotten the memo that Halloween was over, or, that he/she may be the ghost of Christmas past, awaiting the holiday, which is (as of this posting) now only four days away. But whatever this ghost's circumstances were, I may never know, for I did not stop to ask him/her.

Instead I made my way west a few yards where there is an arch that one must pass under (seen in the image below) in order to go down to see the Hudson River.

If you go straight (left arrow), there is a long staircase to descend and if you go right (right arrow) there is a steep ramp (shared by pedestrians and cyclists) that leads to the river. I usually opt to take the stairs to avoid cyclists. 

In any event, upon descending the stairs, I reached the greenway which runs parallel to the river (as I've mentioned in previous posts, including the entry that I made this past Monday) and I headed north towards the boat basin where I hoped to see Jewel, a Muscovy duck, who spends her time year round in NYC.

I was so blessed to find her there, standing on one of the river's piers (as seen below).

THIS MUSCOVY DUCK IS FEATURED IN VOL 3

She soon flew to a higher point, one of the rocks alongside the river, where she spent time with Mallard ducks observing other Mallard ducks, as evidenced in the photographs below.

THIS MUSCOVY DUCK IS FEATURED IN VOL 3

THIS MUSCOVY DUCK IS FEATURED IN VOL 3

She almost looked like a lifeguard as she perched there and watched the Mallards as well as the Canadian geese swimming in the river (below her vantage point). 

Meanwhile, on the lawn that is situated to the east of the river — parallel to the greenway — squirrels munched on snacks (as seen below).

But as much as I loved seeing all this wildlife, I had to cut my visit short as the sun was setting early; a view of the winter's solstice sunset over the Hudson in NYC can be seen in the next image.

In spite of the fact that the sunset quite early, the day of the solstice is not the earliest time one will experience the earliest sunset of the year. According to a web-page within timeanddate.com, although the winter solstice "is the shortest day of the year in terms of daylight, but it does not have the latest sunrise nor the earliest sunset of the year. This is because of a discrepancy between our modern-day timekeeping methods and how time is measured using the Sun known as the equation of time."

This page proclaims that the "Earliest Sunset a Few Days Before (the solstice)" and the authors of this page also say "If you look at the sunrise and sunset times for any city in the Northern Hemisphere around the December Solstice, you will notice that the earliest sunset occurs a few days before the solstice and the latest sunrise happens a few days after the solstice. This is also true for locations in the Southern Hemisphere. There, the year's earliest sunset happens a few days before, and the year's latest sunrise occurs a few days after the winter solstice in June."

Be that as it may, how was your winter solstice, dear reader?

*REFERENCE: Eleanor Roosevelt's statue is featured in all of the versions of the book (pictured below), Words In Our Beak Volume One. This is because Cam (the cardinal who is the book's author) is a great admirer of Ms. Roosevelt.

SEE PRESS RELEASE

SOFTCOVER

ADDENDUM FALL 2018: 

The digital versions of Volume One within the Words In Our Beak book series that are mentioned in this entry may only remain available for a limited time, but hardcover versions of volume one, two and three can now be found wherever books are sold.

MY BOOK SERIES

Please click here to go to my blog post that provides details as to where you can get these books. Additionally, I have rendered some images from these books into other formats and they are available via Fine Art America (FAA). Some of my other photographs (Black & White Collection, Kaleidoscopic Images and the famous Mandarin duck who visited NYC) can also be found on my FAA pages.

ADDENDUM SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER 2021:

When the third volume of the hard-cover version of Words In Our Beak was released, I withdrew from promoting my former versions of Words In Our Beak. 

The very first one is an iBook and went into Apple's book store in 2015.

This was followed by an ePub version...

... that is available on Amazon and was also published in 2015.

Subsequently, Words In Our Beak's digital versions were published as a soft-cover book (with slight variations) by MagCloud in 2017.

Its press release can be read by clicking here.  

Now with the release of BIRD TALES....

... I've been advised to make mention of my early versions of volume one of Words In Our Beak, they do vary ever so slightly in content from the hard-cover version of volume one.

As of this addendum, I do not intend to create digital or soft-cover versions of Words In Our Beak Volume Two or Words In Our Beak Volume Three.