Indigo Trail

We go to the wildlife refuge every time we come down here, but typically stay on the main drive and the primary offshoots (like the mangrove overlook and the cross-dike area).  So I hadn't been on the Indigo Trail in years.  It is a wide unpaved bike path, just two miles of sand and crushed shell to take you back to the entrance of the refuge without doing the full loop on the main drive.

My dad and I decided to bike out for a short loop yesterday, crossing over to the bike path so we'd make it back in time for dinner and Hamlet {solo}.

I was biking ahead, a little before the half-way point on the Indigo Trail, when my dad called to me.  I turned back and a low-flying flash of bright red (apparently a bird) crossed the path from west to east.  But my dad's attention was focused on the embankment on the west side of the path.  It was an alligator.  It seemed almost sculpted from stone, sitting still on the slope, sunk in the grasses:

I'd biked right by the gator, but my dad saw the glint of its eye.  (Several other groups of bikers and pedestrians had also apparently passed it without noticing anything.)

We kept a respectful distance and photographed it mostly from the side -- rather than, for example, from in front of its jaws.  The eyes never blinked, and the gator never moved while we watched.  It was slightly unnerving to be so close to it with no real barrier between us.  Probably we could "outrun" it on our rusty old bikes, in a pinch - but we really didn't want to find out.

A bit further on, we noticed that behind the exterior barrier of mangroves and underbrush, there was an interior rank of mangroves which was covered with white birds (probably ibises).  When we got to an opening, we saw a tree with five roseate spoonbills and a few ibises on it.  One spoonbill was grooming itself in a very photogenic way, the bill clearly visible in front and fluffing its darkest pink feathers.  Unfortunately, I couldn't focus my camera on the tree due to the young mangroves in front.

I had slightly better luck capturing their reflections:

Next up was a very nice new observation walkway/platform, from which we were able to see ibises, anhingas, and ducks.  

Observing the observer

A bit fuzzy, but the scene was very cute:

Fuzzy ducks (for Suzie)

It has been more than a year since Suzie died.  I don't recall if she ever joined us here (I know Becky did), but I am sure she would have loved it.  Every time I saw duck-like waterfowl, I thought of her.  It also called to mind our high school gang's catch-phrase: "Wanna buy a duck?" "Does it quack?" "Of course it quacks; it's a duck!"  Perhaps a mini-reunion is in order for 2014, to be hosted here.

Today, we came back and brought my mom.  We tried to keep our expectations low for the walk up 1.5 miles along the bike trail and back again... but we were really hoping for another gator sighting (and, on my part, for more roseate spoonbills).

At the observatory, we saw more herons, ibises, anhingas, and ducks.

Grooming

Immature ibis

More waterfowl

Female anhinga

Two waterfowl among the mangroves

Little blue heron

The roseate spoonbill tree was again bedecked with roseate spoonbills and ibises (hooray!).

And... we spotted an alligator in the water! Again on the west side of the bike path, but about a mile further south than yesterday.

It appeared to be 8 feet long

We could not tell if it was the same alligator as yesterday.  It's possible that this one might have been bigger/older, but we just don't know enough to say for sure.  (In any event, I felt safer because there were trees and underbrush between it and us.)

In any event, we watched for a while, and it eventually submerged a bit, re-emerged, and turned around (away from us) to face the bank of an interior island or delta in the river.  This is when we were able to see its full length.  On the far side of the interior island were many ibises; we were wondering whether the gator was hoping they would stray toward his waiting jaws, or whether the gator was gearing up for a hunting foray.  The gator seemed to be settled in for the moment, so we finally proceeded on our way.

Large circles created by the mangrove roots and their reflections

You know the area is really closed when there's a cactus barrier

A little after 5 p.m., we heard a rustling in the mangroves behind us on the west side and turned around to look. Out came an otter, up out of the foliage and onto the bike path! 

It crossed the path and went down the embankment toward the water on the east side.

Then (to our surprise and delight) the otter came back up again to hang out on the bike path.  As always, we kept a respectful distance... but we couldn't stop smiling.



That's when I took this video:



The sand and crushed shell must be good for an itchy back!



I caught a short video of it scrambling back down to the water (not shown), and then another short video of it swimming away:

  

This was the first time I've seen a river otter in the wild - and I've been to this wildlife refuge many, many times over the years.

We saw a few birds flying low over the bike path as it grew dark, and my mom and I even glimpsed an osprey flying low over the path in front of us, carrying a large fish in its claws - that was pretty cool.

We went on to the 1.5 mile mark (and verified the location of yesterday's gator sighting) without further incident, and then turned around.  The return trip went very quickly.

Sunset

We felt very fortunate.

Tarpon Bay Kayaking

As the morning fog began to lift, we set off kayaking under cool skies and cloud cover.  We took a two-hour tour among the mangroves, and saw many yellow-crowned night herons as well as other herons, egrets, cormorants, and osprey, one or two kingfishers, and even a mangrove crab (a foot or so from my eye - it popped back into a hole in the branch while I watched).

Some birds startled easily; some tried to escape notice by sitting quietly (while watching us intently). It is good to go in a small, silent group -- many birds are easy to miss if there are any distractions.

Yellow-crowned night heron

Young mangroves

Only one of the cormorants was in the traditional pose (wings outstretched to dry) - and he was on marker #11 in the middle of open water.  I took a dozen pictures of him in that pose, but my favorite is this one where I caught him flying away.

Cormorant in flight

Most of the cormorants we saw were mostly submerged, necks and orangey bills showing -- something like ducks, until they dived down and then flew off.

Heron hiding in the foliage

Tricolor heron

Little blue heron

Egret (yellow feet, dark legs)

The tide was with us on the way in to the trail loop, but against us on the way out.  We were glad we'd rented the seat cushions, and I found it was helpful toward the end of the paddle, as we started working harder, to use the life jacket as a back rest.

Thanksgiving on the Beach

Mysterious fish washed up on beach

Pen shells in shallow water at the sunset's last gleaming

Cloudy Afternoon

White pelicans 

Mangrove crabs

Immature Yellow-Crowned Night Heron

Female Anhinga (two-toned, black and tan)

Morning at the Bailey Tract

Ibises 

West end of a east-bound turtle

Good Night, Heron

Night Heron at Night

Magritte (1898-1967)

Went with some friends to see the Magritte exhibition at MoMA yesterday.  It covers just 1926-1938 (starting from the time of his first solo exhibition) and includes many of his famous paintings - including the one of the train coming out of the fireplace, which I saw at its home in Chicago this past April - plus some that were new to me.

Magritte's first solo exhibition apparently included a number of collages with the chess-piece pillars or tree trunks cut out of sheet music.  We tried to make out whether we could identify the songs (most of which were in English, though at least one in German), but to no avail.

My favorite painting of the day was Les Muscles du Ciel (1927):

My least favorite Magritte work remains Le Viol - a painting which (to me) captures exactly a rapist's view of a woman's face.  Les jours gigantesques (1928) is almost equally disturbing.  It appears to show a fierce and intimate struggle between a clothed man and a naked woman.  The man is seen from more than one perspective -- but is only visible within the borders of the woman's body.

I learned the word grelot (sleigh bell) - the term that Magritte apparently used to describe his divided spheres.

Grelots loom in La Voix des Airs - not part of the exhibition, alas!
There are apparently four versions of this work
(of which at least the 1928 and 1931 are on public display) 

For their favorites, Carolyn picked out Magie Noire (1934), and Amanda chose La Reproduction Interdite (1937); I think Kat was simply delighted to discover many references to Freud in the titles and imagery of Magritte's works.

Magritte was my favorite artist in college; sadly, many of his paintings have lost their power to surprise me. Most are familiar (whether from prior exhibitions or from widely available images and reproductions), and my sense is that I know generally what to expect from him.   But it was still really cool to see even the more familiar works in person - the craft that went into subtle details bolstering the sense of three-dimensionality.  I found that I really admired La Clairvoyance (1936); it struck me that the painter is carefully scrutinizing the egg, frowning in concentration, as if to paint what he sees more exactly.

Considering that the guards were barking at museum visitors for imagined infractions,  I carefully respected the museum's prohibition on photography.  But happily someone else managed to photograph nearly every work in the exhibition: http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/node/1909811 

Afterward, we went out to lunch, then I picked up a new wok (yay).  In the evening, I saw the Frog & Peach production of "Hamlet."

Foliage Expedition

Big Apple Circus

A last-minute trip to the circus - in a temporary structure at Lincoln Center!  It was fun.  Highlights included the two pairs of same-sex gymnasts who used each other as jungle gyms to form extraordinary living sculptures (men on the floor, women on a trapeze) and the "living fireworks" display where a team of several men and one or two women took turns catapulting each other into the air from a see-saw and catching each other (usually on a big soft landing pad lugged by the other performers, but occasionally on a chair at the end of a long pole high overhead).  Also really enjoyed the juggler and a literal dog-and-pony show.  The clown was particularly good at interactions with audience members that at first (somewhat queasily) looked like he might be setting them up to fail ... when instead he was setting them up to shine.