....and the winner IS...?

Cam, "my" cardinal whose familiar to many because of the success of her book, Words In Our Beak Volume One

can be seen in the image atop this entry, where she is in my urban garden, the setting for her book.

A copy of this  particular picture is included in her book, where she confesses facts about what truly makes her flap her wings! One of the confessions that Cam did not admit to is something I will share here — if you promise not to tell her — is this: she gets very excited about award ceremonies such as The Academy Awards, which will take place this evening.

Cam was featured (exclusively) in my first bird-themed mini movie, Words in my Beak, which can be viewed on Vimeo. Cam liked the title very much and modified it for her book, which is something that she did admit to doing in her note to the reader.

In any event, because The Oscars are tonight, I though I should give some recognition to those who have been featured in my movies; starting with the ones which are bird-themed. These include, in alphabetical order: Cam’s Wisdom: Time Flies, Enjoy Those Near and Dear to You While You Can;

Emily's Antics;

Harper’s Bizzarre Antics During GBBC 2015;

“Hollywood Finches” Honoring Bragging Rights;

Meet the Finches;

Preview for Words In Our Beak Volume One;

and, as mentioned earlier in this post; Words in my Beak. By the way you can read more about the birds included in the aforementioned movies, here on blogger, by clicking on the following links:

Baltimore oriole, Cardinals, House Finches and Northern mockingbird. Note that one of the images of house finches seen above (the seventh image) is included in my fauna-flora-insect-themed postcard collection.

"Saturday in the park..." (AGAIN)

OTHER CARDINALS ARE FEATURED IN MY BOOKS

OTHER CARDINALS ARE FEATURED IN MY BOOKS

Every time I spend part of my Saturday in Central Park or in Riverside Park, I think of the hit song (Saturday In The Park) by the band Chicago and it is something I've written about in prior entries here on Blogger; you may reference them by clicking here.

I thought of Chicago's song again this morning when I was in an area of Central Park's Conservatory Gardens, and came upon the Burnett Memorial Fountain. A partial view of it is featured in the photographs atop this entry and as you can see a male Northern cardinal is enjoying certain features of this sculpture which is part of the fountain.

Punctuation in Nature! (Monday's Musings)

When I was walking through Central Park this past Thursday evening, I came upon the Polygonia interrogationis (AKA Questionmark Butterfly.

Mr. Physocarpus opulifolius (Coppertina Tree) and Ms. Butterfly

The author, Richard Bach (Jonanthon Livingston Seagull), has observed that "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly." With all the recent rhetoric surrounding Harold Camper's prediction that the world would end this past Saturday, May 21st 2011, Bachs' quote came to my mind today, for I caught a glimpse of this beautiful butterfly playing with the flowers of the Physocarpus opulifolius (Coppertina Tree ).

This is a tree that you may have read about in previous entries on my blog, and which you may refer to by clicking here and here. In any event, as you may recall, dear reader, my Physocarpus opulifolius stands in the northwest corner of my rooftop garden, overseeing the comings and goings of my herbs, vines, plants, shrubs as well as other trees. And from time to time he makes observations about life in my urban terrace garden which is evident in the aforementioned posts. 

It is not a complete surprise that the butterfly chose my Physocarpus opulifolius as a landing spot today. Perhaps the butterfly sensed the Physocarpus opulifolius was feeling neglected and wanted to give him some attention, or, perhaps, the butterfly wanted to tease my Physocarpus opulifolius. I say this because according to the late comedian, George Carlin,"The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity."  

It seems, like the caterpillar, my Physocarpus opulifolius has publicity issues too.

Hopefully Mr. Physocarpus opulifolius will feel better about life in an urban garden now that a butterfly alighting upon his flowers is the subject of one of my garden-themed movies.

ANNOUNCEMENT: It has just been bought to my attention that my coppertina (who now lives in a different garden) and I made an error in identifying the butterfly who visited here in 2011! 

Many thanks to Brenda Dziedzic for bringing it to my attention! Upon seeing a Virtual Story (mini-mini) of mine, Ms. Dziedzic had this to say: "The Monarch Butterfly Comes to New York video is cute, but it is not a Monarch. It's an American Lady." 

I have now made the correction, and the video can be viewed by clicking here.

"... Another Day (Saturday) in the Park..."

As I have mentioned a number of times here on Blogger any time it is a Saturday and I'm in either Riverside Park or Central Park, I find myself thinking of the hit song Saturday in the Park by the rock band Chicago, and today was no exception.

Even though NYC (as well as much of the United States) is undergoing a dangerous heat wave, I took my weekly early morning walk with a friend (CF) and when we walked through Central Park and spent time in The Conservatory Gardens near the area where the Untermyer Fountain (seen in the images atop this entry) is located.

Deltiology is the term for the study of postcards. Who knew? AND Why post info re this now?

Some of you may recognize the first image atop this blog entry. It shows the front of a postcard that features a picture of Cam, a cardinal who has been a frequent visitor to my rooftop garden in NYC (which she discovered from the tree tops that are in my courtyard.)

The picture has also been featured on Brian Lehrer's NY Values Board for WNYC, as well as in my cyber-venues (Blogger, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, tumblr and Twitter). Moreover, this particular photograph is included in the book, Words In Our Beak Volume One, that I wrote with Cam.

Our book is set in my urban garden and it is currently available in Apple's iBooks Store and in the ePub or Kindle book department of Amazon. Words In Our Beak Volume One has been reviewed in both of those venues and also by members of Goodreads. At this time, I am assisting Cam by converting our book into a format that will be reproduced into a limited run of soft snd hardcover versions.

Ode to a Tufted Titmouse and Dearly Departed Flora

It has often been said that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. I don't know much about making God laugh, but I do know that if I want to make my muse laugh, I'll tell her my plans, which is something I not only told her last week, but also posted here on Blogger, where I stated that in going forward with this blog, "I'll return to posting more in depth content within my blogging venues: Blogger, tumblr as well as hometalk. I'll leave the shorter content for FB readers, who will always be directed to my blogging in case they want to read more."

A week has passed and my postings have been confined to Facebook, not only my page, but the pages of others such as Birds, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, The Ellen Show, and WBU-Paramus. 

I find it difficult to give up old habits and routines, but be that as it may, today's post is an attempt to act on the plan I laid out in my previous entry here on Blogger, and so without further ado, I give you today's post where I am honoring a very sweet bird.