January the Fifth is for (some of) the birds!

Earlier today, I posted some facts regarding this date of January 5th, stating that it is the twelfth day of Christmas and mentioned that some folks will be participating in Twelfth Night celebrations. But this not the only event being honored! For according to Holiday Insights (H.I.), "National Bird Day is celebrated on January 5th."  H.I; in an attempt to clarify one bird related holiday from another states the following:

"Bird Day is the oldest of the days set aside to recognize birds. According to the U.S. Library of Congress, Bird Day was first observed  on May 4, 1894. It was started by Charles Almanzo Babcock, superintendent of schools in Oil City, Pennsylvania. By 1910, Bird Day was widely celebrated, often in conjunction with Arbor Day. Bird Day and Arbor Day events are focused upon conservation training and awareness.

"National Bird Day was established by bird activists. It calls upon people to recognize the plight of captive birds. It also draws attention to exploitation of birds in the U.S. pet industry. On this day, organizers suggest we reflect upon the conditions of birds held in captivity. Note: Our research did not find any documentation that this is a "National" day, which requires an act of congress.

"International Migratory Bird Day celebrates the incredible journey that migratory birds take each year. They travel thousands of miles between breeding grounds in North America, and their winter homes in Central and South America. Organizers say this is a day to both support, and to increase awareness of conservation efforts in support of migratory birds. They also suggest a field trip into a woods to look for and enjoy migrating birds."

Furthermore, H.I. suggests that on this National Bird Day (as well as all bird-related holidays) that folks be more observant of our feathered friends. This always a great thing to do, but, it's also great to give the gift of birds to a fauna lover on this day.

On another note, I have a confession to make re my own observation of my visiting birds! As I was typing this I heard a lot of commotion in my kitchen and thought it was a mouse! Turns out a little male house finch (a bird type that is featured in Cam's book) had gotten inside by going through a very small opening in my window! Before attempting to help him make an exit, I tried to get a photo!

BUT it turns out the memory card wasn't in my camera! I'll have to rely on my own memory re this encounter and turn to the wisdom of E.B. White's aunt which I've referenced here on Blogger in the past, stating:

"When a missed opportunity like this occurs, I try to console myself with the wisdom that E.B. White spoke of in his essay, 'Remembrance is Sufficient.' An excerpt from this can be found below:

"'...A few weeks ago she (White's aunt) said something so close to the theme of Christmas that we shall quote it here... We were apologizing for have taken her for a motor ride that morning to see once again the bright colors of the woods. 'Why, my dear,' she said without hesitation, 'remembrance is sufficient of the beauty we have seen.'"

Therefore, instead of bemoaning that I wasn't on point to document my visitor's very short stay (he figured out how to get out of Dodge...), I'm very flattered to have been in his presence. And to think he visited me on National Bird Day!

National Bird Day 2020

Cardinal Feeds Fledgling (Info in my "Words In Our Beak" Book Series)

Today, January 5th, is a holiday known as National Bird Day, which is an occasion I've written about in bygone years;  and will continue to do going forward, as this holiday has great personal importance.

May 4th is STILL For The Birds!

VOLUMES ONE AND TWO

Today, May 4th, is Bird Day. It seems more special today in 2018's Year of the Bird, which, as you may know, was designated as such due to this year being the one hundredth anniversary of the passing of The Migratory Bird Act.

In any event, according to Holiday Insights, "Bird Day is the oldest of the days set aside to recognize birds. According to the U.S. Library of Congress, Bird Day was first observed  on May 4, 1894. It was started by Charles Almanzo Babcock, superintendent of schools in Oil City, Pennsylvania. By 1910, Bird Day was widely celebrated, often in conjunction with Arbor Day. Bird Day and Arbor Day events are focused upon conservation training and awareness."

If this breaking news sounds familiar to you dear reader, it may be because I discussed Bird Day in my May 4th posting for the year 2016, which was quite extensive, as it included many bird varieties.

You may reference it by clicking here. Since the publication of my Bird  Day post, I have published two hardcover versions within the Words In Our Beak book series and they can be seen in the image atop this entry.*

Today in honor of Bird Day, I am featuring images of all the bird types whom (in alphabetical order) I have met in Central Park or at the Hudson River, as well as in my courtyard, since that the last year's Bird Day.

N'tl Bird Day 2021 has come and gone! However, one can continue to celebrate! (Tuesday's Truths WK 201)

MALE HOUSE FINCHES ARE FEATURED IN WIOB

This two hundred and one segement of Tuesday's Truths is to alert you to the fact that National Bird Day has come and gone for the year 2021. It was celebrated three weeks ago on 1-5. Information re this holiday can be found in a number of places on the web including a page for National Day. 

In bygone years, I've published posts about this occasion as I certainly appreciate any occasion that aims to raise awareness about members of the animal kingdom and I don’t think it needs to be limited to one day.

But this segement is also designed to let you know that if you missed this year’s National Bird Day, just make it a point to do something that will benefit our feathered friends, such as making sure any bird feeder you have is clean as well as replenished. 

They will truly appreciate your efforts as evidenced by this male house finch (in the photograph directly above) who is enjoying a snack from a feeder in my garden.

Another thing you can do is to make sure your bird bath is clean and if winter temperatures are prevailing, make sure the water isn't frozen.

Monday's Musings 2: Session 35 & N'tl Bird Day

A #CLAPBECAUSEWECAREPARTICIPANT

The photo-op directly above is from tonight's (May the fourth) #ClapBecauseWeCare session, where many participants announced: "May the fourth* be with you, first responders, health care professionals and essential workers. BRAVO! BRAVO!"

*"May the Fourth be with you," is the catchphrase of Star Wars Day on May 4th, the unofficial holiday celebrating the Star Wars franchise. It is a pun on a famous line from Star Wars, May the Force be with you.

NOT SO FAST: #MaytheFourth is for the birds!

This past Saturday —  which was May the Fourth — here on Blogger, I reminded readers that it was World Naked Gardening Day, but in order to not scare the many people whose windows look out onto my rooftop garden, I didn't tend to it in the buff.

February First

I confess that I feel that I don't have much to offer re the onset of February in this year of 2019 except to reiterate what Snoopy has to say re the date of 2-1 (in the comic strip that I've posted atop this blog entry). What I can do, dear reader, is to remind you that February is National Bird-Feeding Month.

Throwback Thursday: N'tl Peanut Day 2017 has come and gone.

Yesterday was National Peanut Day 2017; and because the holiday shared the spotlight with the celebration of Uncle Sam Day, I didn't cover it in my blog post at that time. I focused on reporting facts re Sam's day of honor; and if you'd like to refer to this particular entry, please click here.

Today's post is dedicated to the 2017 National Peanut Holiday, which means I'm not throwing too far back on this Throwback Thursday. Besides Uncle Sam's Day always coincides with the celebration of National Peanut Day.

Last year, on September 13th 2017, I published an entry on National Peanut Day; and on the following day, September 14th 2016, I published a post which discussed Uncle Sam's Day.

Therefore, this year I'm doing the reverse in terms of publishing entries re these two holidays. As I said, Uncle Sam's posting was on his official day which was yesterday, and today, a belated offering to National Peanut Day is being made.

The young cardinal pictured atop this entry can be seen enjoying peanuts from a wreath-style whole peanut bird feeder which hangs in my urban garden.

"Oh, say can you see...? " Honoring National Anthem Today

Cardinals are  the state bird for seven of the United States (these include Illinois; Indiana; Kentucky; North Carolina; Ohio; Virginia, and West Virginia). This is  a fact that gave Cam (to the right of her husband in the first picture) bragging rights (as if she needed them) when she put together her book Words In Our Beak Volume One.

Bird Day Reflections

Yesterday, May 4th, was a National Holiday in the USA. It's a holiday known as Bird Day.  However, while Bird Day is officially recognized on May 4th, it is an occasion I celebrate every day, as I truly appreciate the avian community. However, yesterday, I did spend part of the official Bird Day with Juan V, who was here to work with me in my rooftop urban (NYC) garden, where I'm working out the details re the placement of bird feeders.

Tuesday's Truths WK 13: How The Bald Eagle Became America's National Bird AND Other Cool Facts!

Hello and welcome to week thirteen of Tuesday's Truths. The photo of a Bald Eagle atop this entry was taken yesterday at The Raptor Trust, a bird rehab facility in New Jersey. As you may know, dear reader, I initially learned of The Raptor Trust's existence from The Wild Bird Fund, the only bird rehab center in NYC. I made my first trip to their facility last Friday and posted this fact on Blogger on Sunday, October 9th, where I introduced Pearl, an American Robin, who is classified as "partial-Albino" by The Raptor Trust, as evidenced in the photos below.

In any event, within the aforementioned blog post, I promised that I would write about the other birds that I saw there. But I  didn't know that I would have the opportunity to return to The Raptor Trust today with a friend who wanted to give our mutual buddy (who has been recovering from an illness for a long time) an opportunity to have a day trip.

I only took a few photos yesteday as I haven't had the chance to use the ones I took this past Friday! But the photo of Pearl (directly above, as well as the image atop this entry, and the two directly below were taken yesterday.

I had hoped to get better images of the Bald Eagles who are permanent residents at the facility as I knew my intention was to post information re how the Bald Eagle became America's national bird.

Here's Tuesday's Truths WK 66: Facts re Benjamin Franklin and Turkeys

Hello and welcome to the sixth-fourth week of my Tuesday's Truths series, which is being posted on the Tuesday of  the week before Thanksgiving, a day when many Americans, unlike yours truly, who is a vegetarian (ninety-five percent of the time), will eat turkey. I happen to find it foul to eat fowl, and cannot eat turkey, but I can talk turkey about the myth that Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird of The United States instead of the bald eagle being our avian rep.

Yesterday's "bomb cyclone."

MALE CARDINALS ARE FEATURED IN MY BOOKS

At one point it was so windy during yesterday's "bomb cyclone" (a winter storm that hit NYC with a vengeance), that the "mohawk" of a male cardinal who was visiting my rooftop garden was blowing back and forth. Not even the stiffest hairspray could've helped his situation, as evidenced by the image atop this entry, where he is alighting upon the branches of my kiwi vines, while a lone male house sparrow tries to hold his own in the background.

The Twelfth Day of Christmas and other Stuff

IMAGE CREDIT

Happy Twelfth Day of Christmas. According to a song, it's the day when someones's true love gave to them twelve Lords a leaping, along with many other items including eight maids a milking, seven swans a swimming, six geese a laying, five golden rings, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.

In honor of the day, I've posted a picture of an illustration (by Roberta Baird) of the bird known as a cuckoo atop this entry. According to a web-page (12 Birds of Christmas), "The lords a-leaping are cuckoos. The cuckoo hen notoriously lays her eggs in another bird's nest. Because of this the cuckoo became a symbol for immorality and disorder. Not just this day, but the whole season of twelve days was a time of misrule and sexual license. The world was turned upside down, and the lowliest laborers might become the highest lords. The twelve lords a-leaping bring the song to an end, since twelve is the number of completion. As we return to normal life again, we remember that spring will be coming, life will be renewed, order will form out of disorder, and the cycle will continue."

And FYI, today is not only The Twelfth Day of Christmas, it is also National Bird Day...

IMAGE CREDIT

... which I've written about in bygone years; please click here to reference those entries.

Now have yourself a merry little Twelfth Day of Christmas and remember tonight is Twelfth Night!

Addendum: 

It seems the caption on Ms. Baird's illustration may be wrong. A number of resources discussing "The Twelve Days of Christmas," state that on the Twelfth Day of Christmas, someone gave their true love twelve drummers drumming along with other gifts. And it was on the tenth day that they gave their lover lords a leaping (10 in total) along with other gifts. 

Bird Day 2021 (Tuesday's Truths WK 214)

Yesterday shortly after Juan V (JV) left from working with me in my garden, I had a visitor who happened to be a male Northern cardinal.

This incident was most welcome after having made my place more beautiful with yesterday's plantings. In any event the handsome creature is featured in the sequence of images atop this entry which serve as a play-by play to his discovering peanuts I had placed in a small petri-dish-style bird feeder, that hangs in close proximity to my lush pair of kiwi vines.

One of these vines is the narrator of my garden-themed movie, The Kiwi Speaks! Fifteen Minutes of Fame...almost, which can be viewed on my You Tube channel and/or my Vimeo channel. 

In this mini movie, the vine talks about what it is like to live within my rooftop garden which is located on the Upper Westside of Manhattan.

A few years after this kiwi vine experienced nearly fifteen minutes of fame by talking about my place, a wildbird, known as a female cardinal named Cam, also expirenced fame by narrating a three volume book series about my place.

Monday Musings: N'tl Napping Day & DLST

CAM, THE NARRATOR OF "WIOB" GETS HER BEAUTY SLEEP

It's the Monday after the onset of 2018's Daylight Savings Time (DLST) and Cam, my visiting cardinal (pictured above where she is taking a nap under the 'Tamukeyama' which grows in a container that's within my rooftop garden).

This is a picture of Cam that you might recognize as I've featured it in a prior post here on Blogger, and if you have read volume one of her book series, Words In Our Beak (which can be seen in the image directly below), you might recall that it is featured at the conclusion of her story.

SEE PRESS RELEASE

In any  event, Cam has brought it to my attention that any Monday occurring after the onset of DLST, is considered to be a holiday known as National Napping Day.

According to a web-page, "National Napping Day is observed annually the day following the return of daylight saving time.  National Napping Day provides everyone with the opportunity to have a nap and catch up on the hour of sleep they lost due to the spring forward time change."

The aforementioned page goes on to explain the history of this holiday stating: "William Anthony, Ph.D., a Boston University Professor and his wife, Camille Anthony, created National Napping Day in 1999 as an effort to spotlight the health benefits to catching up on quality sleep."

Anthony and his wife proclaim,“We chose this particular Monday because Americans are more ‘nap-ready’ than usual after losing an hour of sleep to daylight saving time."

I confess that I've never heard of National Napping Day, but there is no time like the present to take advantage of it! And just to make sure that I don't miss any more National Napping Days going forward, I've made a list of when they will occur in the coming years.

I've posted the list below for your convenience, dear reader:

March 12, 2018

March 11, 2019

March 9, 2020

March 15, 2021

March 14, 2022

March 13, 2023

March 11, 2024

March 09, 2025

Meanwhile, I hope to get a nap in on this National Napping Day, and if you are so inclined, I suggest that you take one too!

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.

National House Plant Appreciation Day (Tuesday's Truths WK 161)

The official observance for  National Houseplant Appreciation Day has come and gone, but in my mind, house plants and indoor succulents can be celebrated at any time!

A reason the official holiday which is my (Tuesday's Truth for today) is celebrated annually on January tenth (according to National Today) is this:

"By mid-January, most of our various holiday decorations and Christmas trees have made their way out of our homes. National Houseplant Appreciation Day is on January 10 every year, and it reminds us that we don’t have to lose the freshness and vibrancy that plants bring to our homes just because the holidays have drawn to a close. If you have the post-holiday blues, this is the perfect chance for you to brighten up your house with a lovely plant that you can enjoy all year long."

My indoor garden is comprised of plants are a collection of succulents which thrive under grow lights but I have to take them outside or place them in a basin on a regular basis in order to give them water.

Wednesday's Wisdom: Inern'tl Women's Day (Cam, my cardinal can relate.)

Today, March 8th, is one of my sister's birthdays. She can be seen in photo atop this entry, where she is on the lefthand side of the image, busily eating a drumstick, during a Thanksgiving dinner held in our home during bygone years. Because we grew up in the midwest, and because her birthday is in March, there were occasions that heavy snowfall prevailed on her birthday. We all recall that one year, when we were very young children, a major snowstorm occurred on her day, and she turned to my mother, and asked, "Doesn't God know it's my birthday?" My sister's day of March the 8th, coincides with an observance known as International Women’s Day. 

Regarding the aforementioned event, there is a web-page which states, "For a lot of people in the U.S., International Women's Day just isn't that big of a deal. Before this year (1977) one could argue that few Americans knew this "holiday" existed. Others who did know about it likely shrugged it off as yet another hashtag holiday (see: National Peanut Butter Day) social media marketers created to get consumers' attention. While the organizers of the Women's March on Washington have helped bring greater attention to IWD, the first time it was observed was back in Feb. 28, 1908." 

In 1908, my maternal grandmother would've been eight years old, the age that I believe she is in the following photograph (which has been featured in at least one of my prior posts here on Blogger.)

My grandmother is in the back row on the right. She died many years ago (1987); and, her parting words to me were ones that urged me to get back to my writing.

Thankfully I have done this by helping Cam, (the cardinal pictured directly below, in a picture I took of her in my rooftop garden)...

... write and publish her book, Words In Our Beak Volume One.

In fact, Cam is named for both of my maternal grandparents! Her name, Cam, is short for  Clara Albert Melahn (Clara is my dearly departed maternal grandmother; Albert is my dearly departed maternal grandfather).

In any event, Cam is quite a forthright spokes-bird; and in her narrative, she aspires to raise awareness of all members of the avian community, but especially those who  are cardinals. Cam's need to raise awareness stems from the fact that she understands what it is to be marginalized.

Wednesday's Wisdom: Go Fly a Kite?

Today, February 8th, 2017, is the second week, of the second month, of the new year. I confess that re this fact, I'm finding myself more than a little bit overwhelmed at the passing of time; and my inability to fulfill my goals as well as to make the accomplishments that I had hoped to achieve at this point in my life. Therefore, last week's comic strip from Peanuts (posted above), truly hit a chord!

The Fourth Day of Christmas 2019

IMAGE CREDIT

Today marks The Fourth Day of Christmas, a day when someone's true love gave them four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.

I'm honoring the holiday with the illustration posted above, which is one I featured in last year's Fourth Day of Christmas entry.

Within this entry I'm also honoring the holiday with four pictures of a calling bird known as a Taveta Golden Weaver (Ploceus Castaneiceps) one of the image is directly below.

I saw this bird type during my November visit to the Central Park Zoo, a visit which I discussed two weeks (December 14, 2019) here on Blogger.

The aforementioned entry features some of the other bird varieties (Black Swans, Pied Avocets, Scarlet Ibises, as well as a Victoria Crowned Pigeon and green parrots) whom I observed when I was at the zoo on that day.