Something Fishy Going On Here

A few years ago, I found some circumstantial evidence that we had a breeding pair of osprey (Pandion haliaetus) living in the vicinity of one of my jobsites... it's not usual to find sizable fish on the lawn fifty feet from the nearest body of water. Sure enough, within a week or two, I was able to spy a rather vocal fishhawk perched high up in a dead tree adjacent to our property. We've had osprey there for about four years now.

Last year, I noticed another osprey in the vicinity of my major workplace- we're not far from the Mighty Hudson, and we have a small tributary running through our grounds. Yesterday, I had the great good fortune to see the local osprey perched on the limb of a tree on our grounds, eating a fish:

It was right around sundown, so the picture, hastily snapped with the camera of the department smartphone, isn't all that great. What is great, is the fact that we have osprey onsite... what's even better is the fact that the osprey have come back from the brink of extinction due to the effects of DDT. Recently, I've had the good fortune to have osprey sightings not only at work but near the waterways closer to home. A decade ago, I'd have to visit the Marshlands Conservancy in Rye, NY, to get my osprey fix (there is a nesting box in a cove there), now I can get it every week just by showing up on the job.

Drama in the Sky

This afternoon, I hauled my carcass to Tibbett's Brook Park for what passes for fresh air in the megalopolis and some sunshine (living at night isn't helping my complexion). In the course of rambling around the pond, I saw (gasp!) an osprey flying overhead:

I noticed something trailing from the bird's legs, which it was attempting to dislodge with a complicated set of aerial maneuvers. Thankfully, the bird was able to dislodge the thing, which turned out to be (yeah, you probably guessed it) a plastic bag:

The damn thing was too far from the shore to fish out of the pond. Thankfully, NYC, our big neighbor to the south, seems to be moving quickly toward forcing stores to charge ten cents per plastic bag, to reduce this waste that will outlive our nation (the Atlantic has its own floating garbage gyre now).

On a happy note, there is at least one osprey in Tibbett's Brook Park. At the mothership, the subject of DDT came up- DDT use led to severe declines in osprey populations. Seeing an osprey today was a happy coincidence.

Sadly, I missed the one shot which would have been best for this post. After its aerobatics to dislodge the plastic bag, the bird took a plunge into the water and emerged carrying what appeared to be a "liberated" goldfish (judging by the color) in its talons. Hopefully, the osprey will establish residency in the park... if that happens, I'll have to apologize to the wood ducks for not considering them my Tibbett's favorites anymore.

Busy Day, Bizarre Day

Ever have one of those days? Today was pretty bizarre. I worked the graveyard shift this morning, so I didn't roll home until after 9AM. Towards the end of my shift, I noticed that my phone battery was dying, so I turned the phone off. Who's gonna call during the day on a Tuesday? I passed out shortly before ten, and woke up around half-past two in the afternoon. I decided that my first order of business would be charging the phone. Yeah, good idea not to be cut off from the outside world. I plugged the phone in, and noticed that I had a voicemail... it was the division head at work- they needed someone to come in to work a site in the afternoon. Great.

Well, it turns out that my universally beloved co-worker had to work late polishing up an abstract she's co-writing with the site manager for a conference presentation, and the site director (who is a very caring individual) did not want her to be on site all alone. I knew I'd be covering the shift (I swore when I was promoted to supervisor that I'd lead with my chin, so to speak), and this just made the prospect more pleasant. I haven't met anyone who wouldn't jump through a hoop of fire for my co-worker.

After a bit of a pain-in-the-ass commute (lot of aggressive toolburgers on the highway today), I got to work in one piece. I spent a good deal of time listening to my co-worker tell a hilarious story about her recent move to an apartment three blocks from her parents' house, and the multi-week ordeal of spackling and painting her new place while shuttling back and forth between the new place and her parents' house. She had enough of her stuff in the new place so she could camp there overnight, but she had to run to her parents' place to get dressed for work. Her landlord is allergic to cats, so she couldn't bring clothes to her new place until she washed them. She couldn't keep her work clothes in the new place because of the paint fumes. She described the situation as "keeping Kosher" sartorially as she had two separate sets of clothes and she's not even Jewish. It's hard to do justice to her story, I told her she needs to tape it as a comic monologue.

I was also able to give her a critique of the abstract that she'd been working on. She and the site manager will find out in November if they've been accepted, and the conference is in June. Good luck to her, it'll really be a feather in her cap if she's chosen as a presenter.

On a weird note, I found a sizable fish on the grounds, about fifty meters from the nearest water- it was dead, but in somewhat decent shape... if I had to guess how it got to where it is, I'd have to say that it may have been dropped by an osprey, but I'm not sure where the nearest osprey nest is, though the birds are present in the region. If it wasn't an osprey, then I blame fish.

Being myself, I also took some time to grab some purslane that I'd found growing on site- I have enough to make a small salad when I get home. It's a fringe benefit. I decided to leave the fish, though- can't be eating carrion, now.

It's been an unexpectedly busy day, with a soupçon of weirdness. Thanks for putting up with this barely conscious stream of consciousness today. I'll have a more substantial post up in the next couple of days- I actually have some big news to tell, but I'd prefer to wait until I'm in better cognitive shape than I'm in now.

Are You Going to Finish That?

For today, a flawless sunny day, how about a slightly macabre touch? Being close to the mighty Hudson, we have osprey living on or adjacent to most of our sites. Every once in a while, they leave remnants of their meals for us to stumble upon, as if they took pity on us land-bound schmoes and wanted to throw us a bone... literally:

It's not very often that one finds a fish carcass away from the shoreline... this is what first tipped me off to our local osprey population a few years back. I imagine the local raccoons are nice to receive an occasional gift from above now and then.

Another Global Pandemic

Today's post is a break from the usual run of bad news about current events, and a detour into an unusual run of bad news... in an annual count of avian migration casualties by the Audobon Society's Project Safe Flight in New York City, a mass death event of birds was reported, and covered by Gizmodo.  The end-of-summer migration season is in full swing, and New York City, with its glass towers and nocturnal lights, poses a terrible risk for birds on the move.  There are ideas to make migration less fraught, such as turning off lights at night and making windows more visible with etching or decals.

In April of this year, my great and good friends of the Secret Science Club hosted a lecture on bird migration by author Scott Weidensaul.  This lecture, and my regular reading on ecological matters, should have warned me of what to expect, but it didn't quite prepare me for the photograph of dead birds accompanying the Gizmodo article.

On the job, I am fortunate enough to be exposed to the natural world and its processes.  The sites at which I work are on the route of the Atlantic Flyway. and I have been enchanted by the birds I have been able to observe, primarily osprey, and a couple of weeks ago, a pair of bald eagles which I hope establish a nest onsite.  Tropical storm Ida forced us to shut down this site until repairs can be made to the local access road by the municipality, and to a gravel driveway by the organization.  One of my coworkers, a acting manager of this site, is an even more avid birder than I am, and I'm sure she'd be upset to read this article, though she knows the perils faced by our avian darlings.  Again, seeing the pictures packs an emotional punch that dispassionate knowledge lacks.

Bien Malo

It’s been a roller coaster of a day. Dawn was an idyllic time, shortly after sunrise, I was entertained by two very vocal osprey which have made one of our worksites home. As if that weren’t enough, we have young turkeys running around with mom, adding a comical element to the otherwise gorgeous show.

I had to drive to another site in order to unlock the parking lot gates and prepare for the influx of tourists... we are understaffed, so I am doing double duty on the weekends. While I was there, there was some drama involving our cleaning contractors. One of the employees was considered ‘no call/no show’ last week, so a manager came by with a substitute, telling the other employee to go home. This, as you can imagine, resulted in tears. I asked the chastened employee, who I have known for four years, what had happened. She told me that she had sent the manager a text message the Monday prior to last weekend, so he was lying about not receiving notice. I told her that I would speak on her behalf to the company owner, who I know well. She told me that the manager plays favorites, and described him (in a paradoxical fashion) as ‘bien malo’, which translates directly as ‘well bad’ or even ‘good bad’. It’s an intensifier- I would describe myself post all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ as ‘bien gordo’, ‘well fat’. I asked her if she needed a ride home, because the bus ride would take forever, and she asked me to drive her to a shopping center where she could pick up some day labor, because she’d already hired a baby sitter for the day. On the ride, she vented about the situation, and the ‘bien malo’ manager who plays favorites and gets cushier assignments for his friends. All the while, I cursed the system of perpetual part-time employment, the system in which one never can be quite secure, much less comfortable, in their job. When we parted, I told her to call or text me if she needed intercession with the boss, or even a letter of recommendation. I’m trying to be ‘bien bueno’ here.

The afternoon has been interesting, in a humorous way. Two guys, twin brothers, who went to school with the Manager on Duty, stopped by. Two guys, twin brothers, who are 6’6” and have a lot of shirtless pictures on the ‘net. They were super nice guys, but they had a bit of a ‘new age’ vibe to them... they were the kind of guys who talk about the ‘energy’ of a place, the kind of guys who talk about ‘healing modalities’. I had to tell them that we were closing, and they thanked me, remarking on the positive vibes they got from our lovely site and its benevolent genius loci. Needless to say, after they left, we ragged on the MOD about her two ‘Chadly’ admirers, and she got a good laugh about that. I needed that laugh, we all did.

Dr Jen, I Presume?

Today was a banner day, I got to hang out with Dr Jen W, who is a regular Wonkette commenter.  While on a Zoom hangout session, she mentioned that she would be flying in from Portland, OR, and asked, "When are we going to hang out?"  My reply was, "With my work schedule, I can take you to my workplace for an afternoon visit, or we could meet at Wo Hop in Chinatown at 2AM for some chow fun."  I guess the prospect of hanging out with a bunch of drunks and cops in the wee hours of the morning wasn't so appealing. 

We consulted the MTA Metro North schedule, and arranged to meet at the Tarrytown railroad station around 1:15PM, and I drove to one of my worksites, which is open to the public on a limited basis.  We were extraordinarily lucky, there being two bald eagles onsite as well as the usual coterie of wild turkeys and osprey.  I'm hoping that this is a mated pair looking to establish a nest... that would make me ecstatic.  The manager on duty, being even more bird-obsessed than I, brought a pair of binoculars to work, so we were in for quite a treat.  The weather was good for outdoor activity, slightly overcast and seasonally cool.

Our visit was a lovely one, of about two hours, then we went back to Tarrytown for a quick meal of mezédhes at the venerable Lefteris Gyro, before I had to go back to my workplace and clock in by 3:30PM.

The one boneheaded maneuver I pulled today was leaving my phone/camera in the car during our visit, so I didn't take any pictures.  Everything else went perfectly, the timing, the visit itself, the panoply of flora and fauna... I just don't have photographic evidence of it all.  I'd be willing to sign an affidavit to prove that it was a superfun day, though.

Opening Day

Today was the first day of the regular tourist season. We've had various group tours and a couple of special events, but this was the first day the doors were open to the general public for regular tours. I got to work with two of my favorite co-workers, a sweet woman who, like my mom's mom's mom had, has Graubünden roots, and a hilarious, flamboyant rocker gal who wears a ton of eccentric jewelry and used to be in an almost-up-and-coming band in Germany in the late 70s (the latter took these pictures last year). Visitation numbers were good- several tours had to be added to the schedule.

When things quieted down, I ascertained that the loon is still on site- my first sighting of it was two weeks ago. As an added treat, there was a osprey on the premises, perched in a tree in the same vicinity that the loon tends to occupy.

Behind our visitors' center, the gorgeous flowering bushes (I'm pretty sure they're Viburnum) are giving off a most delightful fragrance:

The daffodils are still doing quite well. More importantly, my stinging nettles are coming in like gangbusters, and I plan on picking a bunch of them tomorrow so I can make creamed nettles on my day off- I've gotten pretty good at making Yorkshire pudding over the past month or so, so I'll probably split the little things open so I can fill them with nettles.

I'm happy to say that our opening day was a success, and I hope that it portends a great upcoming season. I'm actually pretty optimistic here.

A Big Fat Goose Egg

I continually run into bizarre situations on the job, things which require a bit of puzzling out- a sizeable fish on the lawn, fifty feet from the water, hints at the presence of osprey in the vicinity. On Thursday night, while walking on a footpath on site, I encountered a big, fat goose egg:

It was an unexpected sight- a pristine white egg sitting in the mud of the path. The Canada geese (Branta canadensis) are breeding, and I suspect that this egg had been blown out of a nest by the 30mph(42kph) winds and rolled to this particular spot. Being a forager, I have to confess that I took a good, long look at the egg before deciding against grabbing it for a meal... I honestly don't know how long the egg had been sitting around, and I generally don't go for animal matter of unknown origin. The funny thing is that I have eaten balut, so the prospect of finding a little occupant in the egg wasn't the dissuading factor, but the prospect of bringing a rotten egg into the house lessened the appeal of a free-range goose egg.

I left this potential golden bounty for one of the site's raccoons or crows to find... those critters are a lot more forgiving of 'past sell-by date' comestibles.

Welcome to MY World

I work nights, I've worked nights as long as I've been with the organization, even though by nature I think I am a 'morning person'. For years, I have suggested to our head of human resources that we should hold an all-staff 'jamboree' at night so everybody could get a taste of what I and my team experience... and I'm only half joking. So far, the main office hasn't 'greenlit' this proposal.

Tonight, though, I will be my immediate boss and representatives of our events production department at 8PM on one of our sites. Sunset is at 7:55. They want to assess the lighting conditions on-site in advance of a proposed new nighttime event in October. A few years back, they had a nighttime event at this site and nobody asked the night crew what conditions were, nor did anyone check out the site to ascertain conditions for themselves. The parking lot was pitch-dark as I could have told them. As luck would have it, I called one of my subordinates, who is a big flashlight nerd, and he showed up with a portable, inflatable emergency light tower and saved the day night. I cited this 'out of left field' solution to an unforeseen problem as a reason to hire him full-time (this happened this pay period, after seventeen years of part-time status).

I'm going to suggest that any lights for the event be temporary. I prefer to have the site largely dark at night because it is a sizable green space, a haven for deer, turkeys, osprey, and other wildlife. Tonight, the spring peepers will be chiming their ancient love songs, and I want them to have as natural a dark night as can be found in the New York metro area.