TEST YOUR POWERS OF OBSERVATION

Male House sparrow, Male Northern cardinal, Mourning dove & Male House finch

Male House sparrow, Male Northern cardinal, Mourning dove, Male House finch

Male House finch, Male Northern cardinal, Mourning doves

Male House finch, Male Northern cardinal, Mourning doves

Male House finches, Male Northern cardinal, Mourning dove

Male House finches, Male Northern cardinal, Mourning dove

Male House finches, Male Northern cardinal, Mourning dove

A few days ago before the days upon days filled with heavy rains were in full force, I took the bird-themed pictures that are included within this post.

There are seven photos within this posting and they all feature a few bird varieties who have been hanging out at one of my feeders, as well as alighting on the branches of my Contorted Hazelnut. It's as if they were having a last hurrah before the onset of relentless downpours occurred.

At first glance these images might look the same to you as their differences are very subtle, can you spot how they differ?

Other bird types are also visiting but they are not included in these pictures.

FYI, all of these bird types are featured (along with many other bird varieties) in my books.

You can find info re this matter within a post on this blog.

MEANWHILE, I'd like to give a shout out to PC who has been supplying my visiting birds with a variety of seeds. I'm not in the position to get this for them, but fortunately for the avian community, she has been able to this, for she loves observing them from the vantage point of her place and she also appreciates the songs they offer while spending time here.

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.

April Downpours Did Not Deter Visiting Birds (YAY)!

Today's April showers were more like downpours and lasted from early morning throughout the night. Fortunately they not deter a number of birds from visiting my garden, including a Northern mockingbird, the avian creature featured in the photos atop this entry.

A Recent Visit By Cardinals

Last Monday, shortly after Juan V left from working with me in my garden, I had a visitor who happened to be a male Northern cardinal. He is featured in the image atop this entry which is very aimilar to the ones included in this past Tuesday's (5-4-2021) blog post.

As I stated in thse entry, "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."

In any event this male cardinal's visit was followed by a visit from an array of other avian creatures including a very young female cardinal.

Northern Cardinals Love One Another

How special to come upon this lovely avian couple (the Northern cardinals featured in the images atop this entry) during a short walk in Central Park.

For years now, I have spent a lot of time there, but for a little over one year that has not been the case due to consequences of the coronavirus.

Cardinals and the celebration of Christmas

In eight days time it will be Christmas day. During this holiday, the likeness of male Northern cardinals are often seen in images on an array of items such as greeting cards, serving dishes, gift wrap, napkins, guest towels, kitchen towels, potholders, — the list seems endless.

Moreover, this bird type's likeness has been rendered into holiday brooches, Christmas tree ornaments and figurines. An example of the latter is featured in the image atop this entry.

I have read many articles and social media posts on the connection between the Northern cardinal and the Christmas holiday, including a blog entry by Karen Harvey Cox that states (re the coloring of a male Northern cardinal), the "bright red to remind us of Christ during the dreary gray days of winter ahead."

In her post, Cox also includes a quotation that proclaims:"Christened the Christmas bird for its spectacular red color, the cardinal has become a symbol of the beauty and warmth of the holiday season. A glimpse of this brilliant bird brings cheer, hope and inspiration on a gray, wintry day. As nature's reminder for us to focus on our faith, the cardinal's scarlet plumage represents the blood of Christ shed for the redemption of mankind."

The description is similar to what many writers state about the male Northern cardinal's association with Christmas, but I find it limiting. This is because thoughts like this only apply to those who live in parts of the world where Christmas occurs during a dreary winter season. In a number of places, Christmas is occurring during summer time, where folks might not be dreaming of a white Christmas with every Christmas card they write.

Red-crested Cardinals vs. Northern Cardinals (Friday's Follow-Up)

Nearly two weeks (December 14, 2019), I published a post here on Blogger featuring some of the bird varieties (Black Swans, Pied Avocets, Scarlet Ibises, as well as a Victoria Crowned Pigeon and green parrots) who can be found at the Central Park Zoo.

I concluded that entry with a promise to feature (within subsequent posts) facts about other bird varieties as well as other animal types who reside there.

Today I will tell you about one of those birds, the Red-crested cardinal who can be seen in the picture atop this entry.

Visits from Northern Cardinals

Cardinals both female and male used to visit my garden on a more than frequent basis but not very often lately. This is something I mentioned in a prior post here on Blogger during the last time a male cardinal came to my place which was on 1-27-2021.

Yesterday I was surprised and thrilled when a female and male cardinal spent time  in my garden. Pictures of this occurance are featured atop this entry.

There are many theories on what it means to have a cardinal visit someone. A web-page for Birding Hub suggests  "A visit from a red cardinali (male) is often interpreted as a visit from one of those four archangels that offer us inspiration and direction in times of need."

Daniel Szczesniak of US ORNS ONLINE states  "...When a cardinal appears in your yard, it’s a visitor from heaven..."

Writer Joe Oliveto believes "How you might interpret a cardinal’s appearance will depend on several factors, including your religion, current circumstances, and overall cultural beliefs." He  offers a guide that covers some of the more common ways people have interpreted the sight of a cardinal throughout history.

All of these interpetations are interesting but i find it odd that they don't include the female cardinal and I don't often subscribe deeper meanings to being visited by a cardinal. Rather I think they come to because of the ammenties (bird baths, peanuts, seeds, edible flora, suet and a feeling of safeness).

Pinecones and Cardinals Spend Time With my Japanese Larch (Larix Kaempferi)

 I have a couple of newcomers to my garden: Pinecones!

They are on my Larix Kaempferi! 

A partial view of this evergreen tree can be seen in the image atop this entry.

Close-ups of the pinecones who have made their home in her branches can be seen in the next two images. 

I was so intrigued by the presence of these pinecones that I researched on pinecones and found lots of interesting content.

Monday's Musings: Scoping out the options? (following up on 3-26-2021's entry)

In this past Friday's blog post, I mentioned that a female cardinal was once again spending time in my garden. She is the subject in the photo atop this entry. 

Bird re-habber and TLLG blog reader, Amanda Remsberg (AR) upon seeing the aforementioned posting asked, "Have they ever nested in your garden? She looks to be sizing up the options."

I hope AR is right but I'm not sure if enough of my garden is offering enough foliage or blooms at this early date which would make for better nesting, so this cardinal may pass on my location.

When do my pictures say the words or when do my words paint a picture?

It is such an honor to have mockingbirds visit my garden (which one is doing in the image atop this entry), but today for my Wednesday Wisdom segment, I can't find the words to describe the feelings such visitors provoke in me.

Therefore, I will use the words that Henry David Thoreau used to describe when another bird type (a sparrow) how he felt visited his garden.

Here is what he said: “I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.”

This quotation has been referenced in a number of my blog posts including one published on an anniversary of one of Thoreau's birthdays (July 12th 2017).

Usually I'm not one who is at a loss for words, which is a good thing since I'm a writer but today, when it comes to describing the feeling I had the other day upon seeing a lone mockingbird in my garden, I don't have much to say. 

Perhaps I'm thinking that my words about this have all been said by me (in prior posts) or have been said by writers whom admire.

Another possibly for lack of words might be due to the fact that I've taken a picture of what  I saw and it might suffice due to it being one of those picture says a thousands words things.

According to a web-page, "the idea that a picture can convey what might take many words to express was voiced by a character in Ivan S. Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons, 1862: 'The drawing shows me at one glance what might be spread over ten pages in a book.'"

Cam's Unnamed Beau

Anyone who follows TLLG's venues either here on Blogger, tumblr, Pinterest, or Facebook knows without a doubt, Cam (the female cardinal in the image atop today's entry which was taken in my urban rooftop garden) is very dear to my heart.

Moreover, Cam had a "one woman show," in that she was the sole character in one of my Virtual Stories (mini movies) titled Words in my Beak , which may be viewed via my Vimeo Library.

I named her Cam for my dearly departed grandparents, Clara and Albert Melahn. Cam first arrived in my garden in July of 2012 and up until that time I had never seen a female cardinal, nor did – I must confess — I realize that female cardinals had brown coloring!

Thursday's Tirade Re Interfering with Feathers

MALE CARDINALS ARE FEATURED IN MY BOOKS

The photograph of a Northern cardinal that is atop this entry is one I took when I was in Central Park this past February and the image came to my mind when I read some disturbing news re a study done on male Northern cardinals by a researcher (L. LaReesa Wolfenbarger) associated with Cornell University.

Tuesday's Truths WK 51: (When a Northern Cardinal pays a visit...)

I don't want this Tuesday to pass without announcing another truth for this date of July 25th, which is is something I shared on TLLG's Facebook Page. I've been honored by a visit from a male Northern Cardinal, who stopped by my rooftop garden last night to enjoy a dinner at my wreath-style bird feeder.

Thursday's Thoughts: Trust Mary Oliver's "Rx"

Once upon a time, on the date of April the twenty-fourth, in the year of 1969, United Artists released  the movie,  If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium. The story-line chronicled the humorous adventures of a group of American tourists taking an eighteen-day guided bus tour of nine European countries.

According to Wiki, the film's title was "also used by a 1965 documentary on CBS television that filmed one such tour, was taken from a New Yorker cartoon by Leonard Dove. Published in the June 22, 1957, issue of the magazine, the cartoon depicts a young woman near a tour bus and a campanile, frustratedly exclaiming 'But if it's Tuesday, it has to be Siena,' thereby humorously illustrating the whirlwind nature of European tour schedules."

The movie's title, If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium, over the years, has subsequently been used to describe a number of situations. In fact, for a number of weeks, here on Blogger, yours truly ran a series of blog posts called If It's Tuesday, It Must Be tumblr, and, readers were invited to read what I had posted on tumblr.

However, I no longer post on tumblr regularly, my last entry there was in April of 2017. Moreover, on Tuesday, July 19th of 2016, here on Blogger, I announced a new Tuesday series, which is known as Tuesdays Truths. This past Tuesday, September 5th 2017, Tuesday, I posted my fifty-eighth entry for this series. 

Be that as it may, the If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium reference is on my mind once again today, because as I was doing some research on molting, which is what a blue jay visiting my rooftop garden (seen in the image atop this entry) is experiencing, I came across an article titled, If the Blue Jays are Bald, It Must Be August.

Sunday's Sentiment: Remembering my Grandfather's Appreciating Trees

My maternal grandfather, Albert Elmer Herman Lewis Melahn, can be seen in an unndated snapshot (directly above) with a tree he had just planted. He died in the mid to late 1970's on this day of January 24th.

It's March!

Well, here we are already in the third month for the year 2019, proving time does fly rather one is having fun or not! I hope someone remembers to wake Mooch (who can be seen in the Mutts comic strip posted atop this entry). But, maybe Mooch needs to sleep a bit more... after all, his pillow looks pretty comfortable and plus the weather might not be so great just yet.

As you undoubtedly know the beginning of March is associated with an idiom: "If March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb and if it comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb."

Evidently this is because "March straddles winter and spring in the northern hemisphere, it tends to have very harsh, unpleasant weather in the beginning but typically has milder, more palatable weather by the end." 

Here in NYC, March is beginning with moderate snowfall as seen in the picture below of my rooftop garden taken in the morning.

THE STORIES IN MY BOOKS TAKE PLACE IN MY GARDEN

In any event, according to a number of sources (including Holiday Insights AKA HI), the month of March in the United States is known as Irish American Month, Music in Our Schools Month, National Celery Month, National Craft Month National Frozen Food Month, National Irish American Heritage Month (designated by Congress in 1995), National Nutrition Month, National Peanut Month, National Women's History Month, Red Cross Month and Social Workers Month.

Birds & Baseball

According to the FB Home Page for the Charles M. Schulz Museum, where the PEANUTS comic strip atop this entry is from, Spring Training (for baseball) began yesterday. I confess I don't follow the sport now since Julia V has died in 2002 (seven years before my first post here on Blogger) Julia was a homebound woman who lived on the UWS and I visited her on a regular basis through a program sponsored by The Church of the Blessed Sacrament.

Julia was a baseball fan (understatement), therefore, in order to have something to talk about a topic she would enjoy I listened to coverage of the sport on the radio, followed the newspaper headlines and watch a few games with her. I didn't keep with the the sport after she passed, but, I do know that a few teams have a bird as their mascot.

My First Pine Cone!

The photograph atop this entry as well as the ones directly below were taken by JV (Juan V) after he spotted a pinecone on the  Japanese Larch (Larix Kaempferi) which is located in the northeast corner of my rooftop garden.

I've never seen a pine cone when it was in the early stages of life and was so fascinated by Juan's discovery that I did a bit of research to learn more about them, which is my wisdom for Wednesday.

According to an article by Natalie Andrews, "Pine trees, also known as “conifers,” have cones instead of flowers. These cones serve as a pine tree’s source of seed. Conifers also produce separate male and female cones for seed development. In general, the development of a pine cone takes around two years and fertilization happens in the spring. Both male and female cones start like tiny pink-lilac bristles.They turn green as they develop, but their scales stay tucked together until maturity. When fully mature, female cones look like typical pine cones, with hard brown woody scales spread apart. They form at the foot of new shoots below the terminal bud and take about two years to mature and produce seeds. Each female pine cone has about 200 seeds, depending on the pine's species... " (You can read the rest of Andrews article by clicking here).

As for my Japanese Larch, I got it in 2005 or 2006 or was it 2004? Not so sure when I first planted that tree in a container that she eventually outgrew!

Friday's Follow Up: Birds Undergoing Molting (Re Young Cardinals)

A young cardinal is featured in the picture atop this entry, and as you can see, this bird has already learned about one of the bird feeders in my rooftop garden.