Laughing gulls spending time in Long Branch

The Laughing gull featured in photograph atop this entry appears to be doing ballet. I enclountered this creature on a recent trip to a beach in Long Branch New Jersey.

It's W.E.D. for 2019!

Today, June 5th is World Environment Day (WED). It is a day that has been set aside since 1974 to promote “worldwide awareness and action for the protection of our environment.” Last year’s theme was “beat plastic pollution," and the Mutts comic strip stop this entry, is a small reminder of how plastics can hurt members of the avian and fish community. The following photographs show how plastic (or rather how people's disposal of plastic) harms the creatures among us.

The first two pictures are ones I took in bygone years when I was at Long Beach. The second image (also taken in bygone years) features a Mallard duck, "caught" in debris within NYC's Hudson River.

More info on 2018's W.E.D.'s theme of “beat plastic pollution," can be found within the following three links: https://theatln.tc/2sJsxya and http://bit.ly/2JeDG5l as well as https://ind.pn/2syboIG.

The way people's dispose their plastic is not the only thing harming our avian creatures.

Friday's Feeling is FROM THE BIRDS

Certain birds are speaking out via a cartoon by Dan Regan (which he did for Shoebox) that something has to be done re the naming of certain birds.

Thursday's Testimony: Confronting Shadows

Maybe because Groundhog Day 2019 has only recently passed, I've been a little obsessed with the topic of seeing/not seeing one's own shadow and am learning to confront mine as Carl Jung suggests everyone should do.

The Fifth Day of Christmas 2018

It's The Fifth Day of Christmas, the day (according to a song) when someones's true love gave to them five golden rings, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree. In honor of Christmas's Fifth Day, I've posted my photo of an ornament based on today's occasion.

On The Fifth Day of Christmas in 2016, here on Blogger, I included a copy of this same picture along with an interesting backstory today's celebration. If you'd like to read that blog entry, please click here. As you will see that post discussed the relationship of pheasants to today's holiday.

Today I find myself associating five golden rings with a bird type.

A 122nd Anniversary Takes Place today!

Besides this being Plush Animal Lover's Day, today marks the one hundred and twenty-second anniversary of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty. According to a Wikipedia page, the statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886.

The image atop this post features a driftwood sculpture of her that can be found near to Long Beach's Boardwalk (on Long Island in NY).

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!

Thursday's Testimony: Plastics are NOT for the birds (or for any other living creature)...

The comic strip atop this entry was in my inbox today and upon seeing it, I was instantly reminded of a couple of seagulls whom I've seen "collecting plastics" on Long Beach. A couple of my images featuring this disturbing scenario are posted directly below.

It never ceases to amaze me how people litter (for surely no other creature is leaving plastics behind).

Some Facts Regarding Laughing Gulls (Wednesday's Wisdom)

In a recent entry here on Blogger, I mentioned that I had been to Long Beach and learned something new about the Ring-billed seagull: "they pant, like dogs which releases heat through evaporation of moisture along the bird's mouth, throat and lungs" and "because birds lack sweat glands, they do not sweat to cool off like we do. A bird will open its mouth and breath faster, which increases the airflow."

On that same day I noticed a Laughing Gull doing the same thing as evidenced in the photo atop this entry. This avian creature is new to me and marks the twelfth new bird whom I've seen in this Year of the Bird.

My last time seeing a bird who was new to me (who happened to be a gray/grey catbird) occurred on 5/29/2018, an encounter which I wrote here on Blogger at that time.

Be that as it may, since today is Wednesday, the day I set aside for my Wednesday's Wisdom series, I'll be using this opportunity to share some information about the Laughing Gull. After all, part of the definition of wisdom, "or sapience is the ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight."

And the gull seen here is certainly using his/her wisdom to cool down on a hot summer day, however there are a number of other interesting facts re this bird type.

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.

It's W.E.D.* 2018! (*World Environment Day) Tuesdays Truths WK 86

As I mentioned in this past Sunday's blog entry, at this time, I am unable to publish entries here on blogger with the frequency that has been my standard for quite some time. I will, at minimum, try and keep my Tuesday's Truths series going.

Today, June 5th, marks my eighty-sixth entry within this series and it happens to coincide with 2018's World Environment Day (WED).

June 5 has been designated by the United Nations as World Environment Day, a day set aside since 1974 to promote “worldwide awareness and action for the protection of our environment.”

This year’s theme is “beat plastic pollution," and the photos stop this entry, are a small reminder of how plastics can hurt the avian community. The first picture is one I took in bygone years when I was at Long Beach. The second image (also taken in bygone years) features a Mallard duck, "caught" in debris within NYC's Hudson River.

More info on 2018's WED theme of “beat plastic pollution," can be found within the following three links: https://theatln.tc/2sJsxya and http://bit.ly/2JeDG5l as well as https://ind.pn/2syboIG.

Thursday's Testimony: Gulls Just Wanna Have Fun... (when all is said and done)

This past Monday, I saw the seagulls (featured in the images atop this entry) when I was at the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in Central Park (where I met a Bufflehead Duck for the first time, which I discussed in this past Tuesday's blog post). In any event, seeing these playful gulls reminded me that gulls just wanna have fun, right Cyndi Lauper? That's all gulls really want....

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.

Sunday's Sentiments for 10-29-2017

Yesterday, Saturday, October 28th, marked the one hundred and twenty-first anniversary of the dedication of The Statue of Liberty. According to a Wikipedia page, the statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886. She can be standing in NYC's harbor (from the vantage point of Red Hook in Brooklyn), in the first image atop this entry. The second image features a driftwood sculpture of her.

That particular image (which was was included in an entry here on Blogger this past June), was taken by yours truly when I made a trip to Long Beach (on Long Island in NY) with my sister a number of years ago.

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.

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.

Splish Splash Seagulls Were Taking a Bath! (Saturday's Sequel Re 10/7/2017's Beach Day)

 

This past Tuesday, in my entry here on Blogger, I discussed a few things related to the visit I made to Long Beach (on Long Island) last Saturday.

However,I did not mention a unique (to me) sighting that I observed when I was there, which was my seeing seagulls bathing in the Atlantic Ocean.

Here's my Tuesday's Truths WK 61: I finally went to the beach!

Hello, and welcome to Tuesday's Truths for week fifty-nine: I finally went to the beach! If you follow my entries here on Blogger, dear reader, then you may recall that I have been trying to go to the beach for the year 2017 ever since May. Therefore, I'm so thankful that I finally had the opportunity to this, even though, because of traffic in getting there, we could only be on the beach four hours.

The beach I was able to visit was Long Beach which is on Long Island in New York. I've been to this beach on countless occasions since I moved to NYC in the 1980's, and several of my trips there have been with my sister, who unfortunately has not been able to visit me this year (as of this posting).

In any event, in spite of the fact thatI have been to Long Beach on so many occasions, I have never visited there in the month of October. It was such a wonderful experience to be there on a Saturday afternoon at this time of year.

And because it's "officially" the end of beach season (meaning there are no lifeguards), the beach was not peppered with as many umbrellas and beach chairs, as depicted in the image atop this entry, which is from a web-page.

However, a fair amount of people, as well as seagulls, were there enjoying an October day at the beach.

Wednesday's Wisdom: Honor The U.S.A.'s Flag

Yesterday, June the 13th, I had hoped to make a day trip to The Fire Island Lighthouse. It is can be seen within the image atop this entry, where an American flag is flying to the lighthouse's left; and, where seagulls, are flying to that flag's left.

I've been to this lighthouse (located within the town of Kismet, on Fire Island), on a number of occasions. And yesterday seemed to be a good time to visit it, as real feel temperatures were in the low hundred degree range. Before nine o'clock in the morning, the actual temperature had reached ninety-six degrees in Central Park!

There are a number of ways to get to The Fire Island Lighthouse. One of them is to take a train (subway) to Penn Station and connect with an LIRR (Long Island Railroad) train to Bayshore, then from there take a taxi to a ferry, which drops passengers off at various towns on Fire Island.

Follow-Up Friday re 10-20-2016's Blogger Post

This past Wednesday, November the Second, was such an unseasonably warm day, so I went down by the riverside to visit the ducks, geese and seagulls, who spend a lot of time in NYC's Hudson River. (As you may recall, dear reader, I also went down to the riverside on an unseasonably warm October [the 20th] day to take in Shelia Berger's "Bird of Glory and Praise," a sculpture that is currently in Riverside Park, courtesy of The Art Students League.) And like my October visit to the river, once again, this past Wednesday I did see a number of seagulls, some are pictured in the images atop this blog entry.

However, I did not see ducks or geese as I usually do, but I did see squirrels enjoying autumn in NYC. One of them can be seen in the following images.    

My observation of this adorable creature prompted me to recall the following quotation:
   
"If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence."