Lunacy? Just a Loon

Yesterday's post was about the lunacy attending the lunar eclipse tetrad, but today's post is about a single loon. This morning, I set my clock at 3AM to get a gander at the eclipse, but the sky was too overcast to see the moon at that time. I reset the alarm for 7AM so I could get out of the house in time to meet a co-worker at the train station so we could carpool to our annual all-staff meeting. I arrived in the vicinity of the train station twenty minutes early (I had been concerned at a series of dire weather reports, but conditions weren't so bad) and decided to kill some time in a park across the street from the station. While in the park, I saw a spectacular sight, a loon (probably a red-throated loon in winter plumage) fishing in the Hudson River:

Here is a picture of the bird spreading its wings:

I have never seen a loon on the Hudson before, despite my regular jaunts on the river's banks. It was a nice, quiet moment before my trip to the train station and our subsequent trip to the all-staff meeting.

The meeting went well- the President went over the challenges faced by non-profits and the organization's response to these challenges. He discussed a trip to D.C. to testify before congress about the need for funding of the Humanitites, and the constant chasing after grant money. Over a hundred of my co-workers attended the meeting, many of whom I hadn't seen since autumn. I joked about the seasonal staff returning like the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano, and noted that I was just as happy as the birders who congregate for their return. The meeting went well, boding a more optimistic outlook for the year.

All in all, it was a pretty good day- I even got to take home a pound and a half of a kickass quinoa salad that was part of the luncheon provided by management. Pretty hard to beat that!