Tuesday's Truths WK 62: Facts RE Herring & Ring-billed Gulls

It's week sixty of my Tuesday's Truths series; and as you may recall, dear reader, in this past Tuesday's posting (10-10), I mentioned that on the first Saturday of October, which was October seventh, I had finally been able to make a trip to Long Beach (which is on Long Island in New York).

Moreover, I have published a followup entry to that post (10-14), where I discussed some of the seagulls who I had seen bathing in the Atlantic Ocean on that beach day. In this aforementioned blog post, I promised to use my then forthcoming Tuesday's Truths entry to discuss a few other facts that I had learned re seagulls as a result of my recent trip to the beach, and so without further ado: The seagull seen in the picture atop this entry, where the creature is preening, is a shorebird whom I encountered on that October afternoon. I've done some research since that time and my understanding  from reading a number of seagull related/themed articles and web-pages; the variety pictured here is known as a Herring Gull.

Monday's Musings: "NYC is the place to be if your'e a bird."

Yesterday, Sunday December the seventeenth, was a mostly overcast day in NYC. The temperatures remained in the thirty degree range, so I layered up before heading down to Pier Eleven (near to the Greenway by the Hudson River) to follow the wisdom of the Negro spiritual and "lay down my troubles down by the riverside."

There is nothing like a walk in the park to clear one's head and Riverside Park is one of the best places to do that in Manhattan. As I made my way across the pier, I came upon a lone Ring-billed seagull (seen in the image atop this entry) who also knew about this respite on the UWS.

Wednesday's Wisdom: "The Ground Effect" (Enables seagulls to glide low to the ground.)

It's been eightenteen days since I made my first beach trip for the 2017 year, and I am still in awe of what I witnessed re the seagulls who I encountered there (Long Beach on Long Island in NY).

In addition to learning of the differences between Herring Gulls and Ring-billed gulls, as well as seeing seagulls bathing in the Atlantic, I was reminded of just how low seagulls flew; as evidenced in the photographs atop this entry.

During my visits to both Long Beach and the beach at Robert Moses State Park in bygone years, I  had witnessed seagulls flying very low. At that time I researched what might be causing them to do this, and I learned that "there is in aerodynamics, a phenomenon called 'Ground Effect.' (The effect of added aerodynamic buoyancy produced by a cushion of air below a vehicle moving close to the ground.) It is where the air under a wing is being squeezed between the wing and the ground. The height of the ground effect depends on the size of the wing. So seagulls glide close to the surface because it is easier to glide there. Pelicans use ground effect, as do other sea birds."

I discussed these findings in a 2013 posting here on Blogger which you may reference by clicking here.

Meanwhile, more pictures of the low flying gulls, who I saw on October 7, 2017 can be found directly below.

Monday's Memory stems from PEANUTS...

.... this strip was published on this day of September 10th in 1982. But Charlie Brown is wrong, Summer is never over on September 10th! The official ending of the season for summer in my hemisphere takes place around September 22nd — twelve days after the tenth, CB!

A Seagull's Work Around to a Cooling Center

When the heat index is predicted to be dangerously high, New York City opens cooling centers in air-conditioned facilities to offer people relief from the heat, but since seagulls don't have access to such places, they have their own methods of getting relief from the heat, which is something I learned on a recent trip (this past Thursday) to Long Beach.