It’s cold here in the Northeast. Today the dog and I went down to the river.
Looking south along the Hudson River Greenway.
We were surprised to see the river flowing freely with just a few large ice chunks floating by the shore.
Looking north toward the George Washington Bridge.
You can see ice over by the Jersey shore, but virtually none on our side. Yesterday, the river had an ice crust stretching out to the middle of the mighty waters.
(The images below are drawn from the past three weeks of wintry walks and window watching.)
Nothing stops the dogs or their walkers, not even the deep freeze machine.
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Dogs gotta walk, and birds gotta eat.
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They also have to stay warm. Look at these mourning doves, puffed up like little Michelin men.
And this flock of starlings trying to catch some eastern roof rays on a morning when the temperature hovered in the teens.
The feral cats in Morningside Park are fed hearty meals year-round by well-meaning humans. Feeding cats also feeds rats, which contributes to a burgeoning rat population, which leads humans to set out poison for the rats that eat the cat food which leads to the death of the hawks that eat the rats that eat the trash that humans set out to feed the cats that live in the park. (Read that five times fast.)
It’s a regular “This is the house that Jack built” scenario, except that the cats (indirectly) feed the rats instead of just eating them, as in the old nursery rhyme.
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Here are a couple of our apex predators, viewed from my window, that do their best to keep our rat and pigeon population under control.
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I haven’t seen a Riverside Park raccoon for some time. They must be laying low inside their snowy den.
There may even be babies snuggled up in there, or, if it’s still too early in the season, a pregnant female, waiting for spring. Come spring, I’ll hope to see the whole family out and about on the retaining wall and in the park.
I know how bad the storm is for people to our east, west and north. But if there was a blizzard here in Manhattan, I missed it.
Oh, it snowed, all right. Here’s what the city looked like yesterday, back when we still believed in unicorns, elves, and being buried beneath the “storm of the century.”
Disappearing city.
By 6 PM, all city parks were officially closed. The subways started shutting down at 7 PM. At 11 PM, all mass transit and all roads were closed.
– Wait, did you say the parks closed at six?
– Uh-huh, that’s right.
– But at six, there was, like, hardly any snow, and no wind, and great visibility, and …
– Don’t worry about it.
Because this is New York, baby, and this is what a closed park looks like.
Night sledding in Riverside Park! Woot woot!
You can’t tame the night sledders. Not in New York.
Wheeeeeee
Only the wildlife took the closing seriously. The raccoons were nestled all snug in their snow-frosted den.
Raccoons who live in the wall were wearing fur slippers, drinking cocoa and watching the weather on NY1.
All night and this morning, the city was eerily, wonderfully quiet. And the streets remarkably clear, thanks to the snowplows that had free rein of the streets all night.
Broadway this morning, light snow coming down.
The ever-present city hum was almost imperceptible, and even now, late in the afternoon, it’s unusually quiet. Although not in the parks.
The parks, with their five or six inches of fresh snow (a bit short of the predicted two feet), are bustling.
Sledding in Riverside Park – looks like a Currier & Ives.
Everywhere are walkers, sledders, little kids in snowsuits, dogs in boots, and parents hauling children in sleds.
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Last but definitely not least, here is an adorable little man in brand new boots, enjoying his first big snow.
As the dog and I step off the sidewalk into a narrow path dug between snow mounds at the corner of Broadway and 108th Street, the sound of distant honking stops me in my tracks. Not the usual traffic sounds of Broadway, but the calls of wild geese. I shade my eyes and look up in time to see a large flock of Canada geese – an uneven, dark V, followed closely by a long single line – disappearing to the southwest over the solid old apartment buildings of Riverside Drive. “Oh,” I say out loud, struck by beauty.
At the top of the stone staircase that leads into Riverside Park, the dog pauses to show off his red shoes.
The red shoes: Dance, little dog, dance.
We descend the staircase, and enter the white winter world of a snowy city park. Everything is strangely quiet.
Central Park after a snowfall.
Only a couple of dogs are playing in the 105th Street dog run.
Down by the river, a solitary runner runs.
But where are the rest of the animals?
We retrace our steps to the path above, where a squirrel scoots across the top of the snow and leaps onto a tree trunk.
The little creature leaves behind a scribble-scrabble of footprints in the snow, the record of many such forays out of the safety of the trees. Three crows call from the top of the plane trees, then fly, one at a time, out of the park toward Riverside Drive. Two house sparrows chirp.
And that’s it. No hawks, no juncos, no woodpeckers, no robins, no flocks of sparrows, no chickadees, no titmice. Where is everyone?
And then we hear a high-pitched call: “Tsip, tsip, tsip.”
Winter’s bare branches make it easy to find the caller: a female cardinal, perched in a tangle of branches beneath the retaining wall. Although I usually see cardinals in pairs, today the brilliantly colored male is nowhere to be seen. The lovely bird kept just outside the range of my iPhone, so here is a photo from last winter of two females picking up spilled seed beneath a bird feeder on eastern Long Island.
The Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) stays with us year-round, and even in the depths of winter, the male keeps his brilliant plumage. (Thank you, Rob Pavlin, for the beautiful photo below.)
Cardinal in Central Park. Photo: Rob Pavlin
Cardinals are particularly stunning against a snowy background, but they’re gorgeous birds in any season.
Cardinal in autumn in Central Park’s Conservatory Gardens. Photo: Melissa Cooper
Just look at that red.
Cardinal in Central Park, early winter 2012. Photo: Rob Pavlin.
You don’t often see animals in winter sporting such flashy colors.
Last night we saw tiny snowmen on the top of the retaining wall in Riverside Park.
It wasn’t much of a snow, but it gave a mysterious look to the park at night.
This morning in the drizzle, a Red-tail Hawk flew low over our heads as we were crossing Amsterdam Avenue. We tracked it as it soared into the animal gates that lead to the grounds of St. John the Divine.
The hawk soared along the path of the grounds, then suddenly swooped upward. We found it perched with a second hawk towards the back of the cathedral.
I have only my iPhone camera these days, so I can’t zoom in for a close look. But here it is with a slightly closer look.
Moments later, as we continued to watch the hawks, Phil, the Cathedral’s white peacock, wandered past us, looking rather bedraggled.
He was completely unfazed by a boisterous group of schoolkids who almost walked right into him as they came around the corner.
Phil simply moved aside with no fuss or hurry.
The dog, on the other hand, was definitely fazed by the sight of Phil. He moaned with frustration and strained at the leash.
The poor fellow has been trying for a taste of peacock ever since he first encountered the three neighborhood peacocks five years ago.
New Yorkers, who come in all shapes and sizes, love their dogs, who also come in all shapes and sizes. Today we’re taking a look at city men who love – or, at any rate, walk – little city dogs.
Enjoy.
Crossing Columbus Avenue and heading west.
Near the 96th Street red clay tennis courts in Riverside Park.
On Central Park’s Great Hill.
Riverside Park.
Riverside Park.
Walking west on W. 108th Street.
Riverside Park.
Hey, Mister, that’s my dog. And he’s not that little.
Lately I’ve been feeling grateful to my walking companion.
Just over five years ago, my family and I left the horizontal landscape of Dallas, Texas for the vertical world of Manhattan. Since then, like old-fashioned postal workers, the dog and I can fairly say that “neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom of night” has stayed us from our daily exploration of our neighborhood’s streets and parks. Walking with Esau has led me to discover things about my city and its inhabitants – human, domesticated and wild – that I might never have known if the dog didn’t need to go out, and then go out again.
So today I just want to take a minute to admire the dog who gets me up and out, who poses patiently whenever asked, and who valiantly represses his predatory instincts long enough to allow me to watch the hawks, raccoons, squirrels, egrets, sparrows, peacocks, woodpeckers, ducks, and other creatures that share the streets and parks with us.
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Last Sunday, the day of the New York Marathon, autumn arrived in earnest. Temperatures dropped from the 60s to the 40s, and gloves were suddenly in order. The dog and I walked across Central Park’s northernmost stretch to cheer on the amazing runners. Notice the bundled-up spectators and the bare limbs of the runners.
We joined an enthusiastic crowd at Duke Ellington Circle at Fifth Avenue and 110th Street at the northeast corner of the park. Musicians were playing beneath the statue of the Duke, and the mood was happy.
The super-elite leaders had already passed by, but the runners counted as among the swift. It would be hours yet before the rest of the pack reached Central Park. When they crossed 110th Street, the marathoners had already run around 23 miles, passing through Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan. All they had to do was now was run the length and width of Central Park.
That’s all.
They came one by one, and in between each runner, Fifth Avenue was empty.
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Soon several powerful women ran past.
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Two wheelchair racers kept pace together, one bent completely forward over his legs.
In East Harlem, north of 110th Street, there were just a few onlookers.
Later in the day, there would be crowds of people to cheer on the huge mass of runners still to come.
The dog and I didn’t stick around to see it, though. We headed back toward the park. Children played, and rolled around, claiming the closed-off part of 110th Street as their own.
A colorful kite man got off his bike, and prepared to fly a celebratory kite or two.
We entered the astonishingly beautiful park and walked west along the Harlem Meer.
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Police helicopters kept watch overhead.
The dog posed among fallen leaves.
Burnished autumn colors glowed.
A feral cat crossed the path ahead of us as we neared Central Park West and 106th Street.
The dog posed at Stranger’s Gate, although his attention remained riveted on the spot where he had seen the cat.
Sometimes a single day in the city bridges many lives and many ways of living. Yesterday was one of those days, brimming with nature and culture, wildlife and art.
In the morning, a little dog sat under a flame tree in Riverside Park near 108th Street and the Hudson River.
Little dog and tree conflagration.
In the afternoon, I crossed the East River to Brooklyn, where I spotted a giant rodent in a parking lot.
The squirrel that ate Williamsburg.
I headed to Acme Studio, where Words After War, a new organization dedicated to “building a community of thoughtful, engaged and skilled veteran writers,” presented its first public event, an absorbing panel discussion focused on writing about war.
Entering Acme’s extraordinary space through the loading dock, I was greeted by another enormous animal, this one lost in profound contemplation.
ACME
The panel was moderated by Quil Lawrence, an NPR correspondent who covers issues relating to the approximately two and a half million men and women who have returned from deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, you read that right. Although less than one percent of Americans serve in the military, nearly two and a half million have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, many on multiple tours of duty. These young men and women come home to a country that doesn’t really even know where they’ve been, let alone what they’ve been doing. Words After War is working to change that.
The panel featured three very different young writers, two of them veterans:
Matt Gallagher (author of Kaboom, co-editor with Roy Scranton of Fire and Forget)
Brian Castner (The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life that Follows)
and Katey Schultz (Flashes of War).
After the panel, feeling thoughtful, I walked west to the East River.
The setting sun touched the city with a golden splendor.
A Bridge to the Setting Sun.
An entire continent lay hidden behind Manhattan’s skyline.
The sky glowed.
My city, my city.
I turned my back on the sunset to find that the light in the northwest was growing colder, although a few buildings now shone as if lit with an inner light.
As I began the walk to the subway, the East River ferry pulled into its dock.
And back in Manhattan after dark, the raccoons of Riverside Park were just beginning their day.
Most of you know my dog from his occasional appearances on this blog. You may know him as the neighborhood rat catcher, as a tireless explorer of urban nature, as the unwitting subject of my research, and as a supremely patient model.
A sign at St. John the Divine: “HOLD CLOSE THY LOVED. Please keep dogs on a leash.”
But what you don’t know – I myself only found out last week, when I took the photo below – is that for his own mysterious reasons (ah, who can fathom the mind of such a dog?), Strider, aka Esau, has been secretly perfecting his Ibsen impression.
As the end of the year approaches, the dog and I would like to thank our loyal readers for their regular visits to Out Walking the Dog. And as our community continues to grow, we’re delighted to welcome readers – and commenters – from all over North America as well as Great Britain, Italy, Finland, Spain, Japan, Australia, South Africa, and beyond.
Here is the first installment of Out Walking the Dog‘s Ten Most Popular Stories of 2012. These stories, all written and published in the past year, cover topics that include waiting dogs and feral cats, the effect of human-generated trash on wildlife, the arrival of coyotes on Staten Island, squirrels, and the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. (Oddly, the most popular story of all remains a post I wrote in 2010: Mastodons in Manhattan: How the Honey Locust Tree Got its Spikes. It has received far and away the most hits each and every year for three years now. Go figure.)
Most Popular Stories, Ten through Six
White kitten, Randall’s Island.
10. Lives of City Cats: The Working and the Feral explores the lifestyles of NYC felines from cats that work to keep delis and bodegas mouse-free to feral cats that roam urban parks and streets. Free-roaming cats, both domestic and feral, cause a surprising amount of ecological damage as they kill birds that evolved without defenses against these efficient non-native carnivores. Are Trap-Neuter-Release programs a humane response to feral cat colonies or part of a larger ecological problem?
NYC Red-tail Eats Rat.
9. The Trash of Two Cities: How Our Trash Kills Our Hawks is a favorite post of mine. In it, I trace the 2012 deaths of NYC raptors to NYC’s overabundance of trash. Secondary poisoning kills raptors that consume rats laden with rodenticides (see post #6, below). All animals, including rats, seek food, water, and a safe place to rear their young. NYC provides all three in abundance, with trash providing most of the food that sustains our sizable rat population. The key to effective pest control is keeping our trash off-limits to animals. A visit to Philadelphia leads me to compare that city’s solar-powered compacting trash cans with the open cans and dumpsters of New York.
8. The Waiting Dogs of NYC is a photo essay of New York’s ubiquitous waiting dogs. Dogs wait for their owners outside restaurants, shops, post offices. Some wait in pairs, some wait alone. Some wait happily, some wait anxiously. My dog, too, waits. But the bond between an urban dog and its owner is strong.
Esau waits.
NYC coyote: Mark Weckel
7. Another NYC Borough Falls to the Coyotemuses over the first documented sighting of a coyote in Staten Island’s Fresh Kills landfill. How did the coyote get to Staten Island? What research is being done in NYC to find out more about where our urban coyotes are living? “As I’ve been saying for a couple of years now, coyotes are coming, people. In fact, they’re here.”
6. Good-bye, Riverside Park Red-tail documents the community reaction to the demise of a red-tailed hawk known as Mom who nested each year in Riverside Park. Over the years, Mom survived a string of bad luck, including the death of a mate from secondary poisoning (see post #9 above) and the destruction of her nest with three nestlings in a storm. But last year was a tough one for NYC’s hawks with at least four dying from rat poison. We visited the charming memorial put up in the park at Mom’s nesting site.
Riverside Park Memorial
Check back before the new year for the top five stories of 2012.
Out Walking the Dog announces our first URBAN NATURE CONTEST!
THE PRIZE
Still the Same Hawk: Reflections on Nature and New York edited by John Waldman, Fordham University Press
This newly published collection on a subject close to my heart features essays and articles that explore the relationship between nature and New York City. Writers include Robert Sullivan, Betsy McCully, Christopher Meier, Tony Hiss, Kelly McMasters, Dara Ross, William Kornblum, Phillip Lopate, David Rosane, Anne Matthews, Devin Zuber, and Frederick Buell.
Out Walking the Dog is proud to have a personal connection to the book through this painting by Charlotte Hildebrand.
Painting by Charlotte Hildebrand.
Out Walking the Dog originally commissioned the painting to illustrate Urban Hawk Snatches Chihuahua? In that post, we pondered the line humans like to draw between meat animals and pet animals, and the reactions of city dwellers when one of our more revered wild animals, a red-tailed hawk, ignores our distinction. The illustration was spotted on Out Walking the Dog by the editors of Still the Same Hawk, and appears (in black-and-white, but still looking fine) as an illustration to Robert Sullivan’s essay, My Time Spent in the Nature that People Would Rather Not Think About.
THE RULES: HOW TO ENTER
Send me a description of an encounter you’ve had with urban wildlife. This may be as simple or elaborate as you like. You may write a sentence, a paragraph, a page, a poem, a dialogue, a haiku, whatever strikes your fancy. Be sure to include your name and mailing address, so that, should you be the lucky winner, I can mail you your prize without delay. Send via email to: Outwalkingthedognyc@gmail.com.
THE SELECTION
One winning entry will be selected at random. All entries will be read with interest, but interest will have no bearing on your chances.
THE DEADLINE
Entries must be received by Tuesday, December 18th at 7 PM.
The drawing will take place later that night or the following morning. The prize will be mailed via Priority Mail on December 19th. This means that, if the United States Post Office does its part and if you reside in North America, you’ll probably receive the book in time for Christmas. (I will send the book anywhere in the world, but no guarantees of when it will arrive.)
AN EXHORTATION
December 18th is around the corner, folks. So get those entries in, and please help me spread the word.
Good luck!
(Did you know you can follow Out Walking the Dog on Twitter and Facebook?)
A branch-and-leaf structure recently appeared in Riverside Park.
What is it?
A closer look reveals a solid low doorway from which the proprietor – or a shaggy interloper – can keep an eye on the grounds.
My house is a very very very fine house.
Built with fallen branches and leaves by an unknown architect, the above ground tunnel looks something like a sleeping animal covered with leaves.
Long, low and leafy.
Tall branches leaning against a tree make for a taller space.
At the other end.
The walls are tightly woven, like the brambles of the 100-year forest that sealed Sleeping Beauty from the world.
Dog inside.
And leaves are thickly strewn.
Walking the tunnel.
The structure both hides and reveals.
The view from within.
And speaking of tunnels as well as of hiding and revealing, my friend Charlotte of The Rat’s Nest blog recently observed a gopher near her house in Los Angeles. She videotaped the little rodent with her iPhone as it repeatedly popped its head out of its hole, looking rather like a large thumb, then disappeared. Charlotte reports that she could actually hear the gopher tunneling in the earth.
The rodent holes I see in and around Riverside Park are not gopher tunnels. These, my friends, are rat holes, and as swiftly as the Parks Department fills them in, the rats dig them out.
Entrance to rat tunnel.
This particular spot, most recently filled in after Hurricane Sandy, sometimes becomes a huge gaping sinkhole leading in and out of the mysterious tunnels where rats live much of their lives, sheltered from predators. Intriguing, but…
I think I’ll stay above ground.
Above ground action.
For more on man-made structures in Riverside Park:
Out walking the dog 