Happy No Rain Holiday Weekend, UESiders!!
And, yup, we’re back… Albeit with just a couple of tidbits this time out…
(Blame the long lapse on downstream effects of the WGA strike and early 2024 torpor!!)
And so:
Every Saturday: 82nd Street/St. Stephen’s Greenmarket
82nd Street between First & York Avenues, 9am-2:30pm
At their tables will be our ever wonderful friends at American Pride Seafood, Bread Alone, Ballard’s Honey, Breezy Hill Orchards/Knoll Krest Farms, and Haywood’s Fresh, Samascott Orchards & Nine Pin Ciderworks, Valley Shepherd, Hudson Valley Duck, Nolasco, Hawthorne Valley and Gajeski Farms… AND… Returning this Saturday, March 29th, just in time for Easter… SIKKING FLOWERS!!
No question, folks, spring’s arrived!!
Still on the UES primo edibles path:
Every Friday: The Lenox Hill Farmstand
First Avenue & 70th Street, 11:30am-5:30pm
Our new, great UES mini-market is thriving, folks!! So great we UESiders now have another year ’round source for delicious, largely organic vegs and fruit, bread, eggs and more!! (For more Farmstand info…)
Next up… Area compost collection:
For anyone craving instant nausea, check out GrowNYC ‘s Compost page with its list of collection sites 100% of which will be closed down from mid-May to the end of June… That is unless the mayor or/and CMs act to restore program funding in the new FY2025 budget.
Thus…
Time to both call and write our two UES area CMs to do just that, i.e. restore compost collection funding for the 82nd Street Greenmarket (year round), the 92nd Street Greenmarket (seasonal) and the Lenox Hill Farmstand (year round):
Julie Menin – 212-860-1950, District5@council.nyc.gov
Keith Powers – 212-818-0580, powers@council.nyc.gov
Meanwhile:
Every Friday: East 96th Scrap Drop-Off1
96th Street & Lexington, 7:30-11:30am
Bring those potato peels on!!
2022 Total: 66,962 lbs.
Every Sunday: Asphalt Green Food Scrap Drop-Off
91st Street & York, 7:30am-12:30pm
NO COLLECTION on Easter Sunday, March 31st!!
2022 Total (from 3/1/22): 46,675 lbs.
Every Day, Any Time: GPG Compost Drop-Off at 64rd Street
East River Esplanade (under the pedestrian overpass from York Avenue), round the clock
Open 24/7 and with bins awaiting…
We’ll (belatedly) have 2023 poundage totals next week!!
In the meantime, there’s…
Monday & Tuesday, April 1st & 2nd, Wednesday & Thursday, April 10th & 11th: Yorkville 81 Block Association Volunteer Birdhouse Prep & Hanging Event
81st Street between First & York, 6pm
And here’s Executive Committee Member Barbara Knispel’s email re this great annual event:
“Hello,
We are getting ready to hang the birdhouses. And, as ever, we need volunteers to help!!
So.. On Monday and Tuesday of next week, April 1st and 2nd, we’ll be varnishing all the birdhouses, starting at 6pm in front of 422 East 81st Street.
On Wednesday, April 10th and Thursday, April 11th, we’ll hang the birdhouses. For this step, we need you to bring a Phillips screwdriver so we can attached the felt needed to hang the houses. We’ll be starting again at 6pm in front of 422 East 81st.
Please respond to this email with your name and phone number and which project you’ll be volunteering for.
We really need extra hands to get all this done and we’ll so appreciate your support!!
Thanks so much,
Barbara
Executive Committe Member
917-710-1683/bknispel@mindspring.com“
Mondays thru Thursdays till Monday, May 9th: Infinite Universes – Czech Games and Their Global Success Exhibition
Czech Center Gallery, Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73rd Street, Monday to Thursday, 10am-5pm
And we quote, “Czech developers are recognized worldwide for their hard work and creativity. They have brought new ideas and defined some of the genres. The exhibition showcases successful projects as well as smaller, promising games that are artistically valuable for their drawings, animation, and music. Free. For more…
Friday, April 5th: Randall’s Island Volunteer Tree Planting
Meet at Main Roadway/Ichan Stadium Bus Stop, Randall’s Island, 9am-12pm
And again we quote, “Join Trees New York and our friends at the Randall’s Island Park Alliance for a spring tree planting on Randall’s Island as they replace a paved area with new trees and plantings!!” For more and to sign on…
Then there’s this primo virtual community gathering:
Thursday, April 4th, 6:30pm: East Harlem Waterfront Reconstruction Meeting via Video Conference
The proposed preliminary design for the East Harlem Waterfront will be presented to Community Board 11’s Environment, Parks and Open Space Committee and interested citizenry. To register…
Oh, what would a week be without a bit more activism:
Should you oppose approval of constructing supersized buildings (think Blood Center) in NYC residential areas…
And if you think folks down wind from 50s-60s U.S. nuclear tests deserve some compensation…
How ’bout a few diverting diversions (leaning heavy on the NYTimes):
The recent saga of a NYC dog-friendly cafe… Literal seeds of hope in Ukraine… Virtual bat (winged bats) experiences… How to eat less plastic… When critters fly – by plane – in and out of NYC… Yup, NYC’s now got folks living in near swamps… The project that so far’s identified more than 700 languages spoken in NYC... Measuring fossil-fueled forest fires (scroll to page 8)… Nature, NYers and our tree beds… Lots of NYC H2O volunteer events… Have a great Jane’s Walk to propose??… Latest invasive species news from the NYS DEC… The state of current National Parks’ funding…
Moving on to the Hudson River Almanac:
3/16 – Hudson River Mile (HRM): A common thread for Hudson River Almanac entries is a reference to Hudson River miles. These give context to each entry, i.e., where in the watershed, relative to the main stem of the Hudson River, did the entry occur? For research, navigation, and other purposes, the Hudson River Estuary is generally measured north from the Battery (HRM 0) at the tip of Manhattan in New York City (there is an additional seven miles of estuary from the Battery seaward to the Narrows).
Federal Dam at Troy
Moving upriver, the George Washington Bridge is at river mile 12, the Tappan Zee Bridge is 28, West Point 53, Kingston 92, Albany 145, and the Federal Dam at Troy, at the head of tidewater, is river mile 153.7. Then we move on to more than half of the Hudson River (167 miles) above tidewater.
From its source in the High Peaks of the Adirondack Mountains, the Hudson flows approximately 315 miles to the Battery. While cities and bridges make convenient points of reference, river phenomena do not always occur at such neat and tidy intervals. – Tom Lake
3/16 – Greene County, HRM 110: Tomas Kay and Keith Cronin came upon a Townsend’s solitaire, foraging on holly berries (Ilex sp.) at North-South Lake Campground today. This is the first record of this Western North American species for Greene County, and only the fourth for Region 8 (a regional designation recognized by the New York State Ornithological Association). – Adrian Burke, Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club
That Townsend’s Solitaire!!
[Townsend’s solitaire is a relative of bluebirds and other thrushes. It is a sleek songbird, a bit smaller than a robin and much slimmer. They are overall plain medium-gray with a short bill, a rather long tail, a noticeable white eye-ring, and buff patches in their wings (eBird). Roger Tory Peterson describes their range as Alaska (breeds in montane coniferous forests; they love juniper berries), northwest Canada, to California, south into Mexico. They are a very rare visitor eastward through the Great Lakes to New England. Their name is in honor of ornithologist John Kirk Townsend (1809-1851). – Tom Lake]
3/16 – Greene County: An essential rite of spring for me is observing an American woodcock male (Scolopax minor) doing its mating dance. Over the years, this has been a spring ritual with my four grown kids and now with my grandchildren. As soon as the snow melts, we listen at dusk for the buzzing nasal “peent” call of the male woodcock that can be heard at a long distance.
On a recent evening, camera in hand, we went to an open field and hunkered down in the gathering dusk blending with a large rock and a small tree in the middle of a half-acre field. Soon, out of the swampland, fluttered a squat but agile bird landing not fifty feet from us. The bird looks so goofy with its super long beak emerging from its head, which is a no-neck bulge extension of its body.
That Woodcock!!
During the male’s dance, choreographed to attract females, its head and bill stays stationary as the plump body moves forward and back to rocking dance steps. This bird immediately began its waggle dance punctuated by a periodic loud buzzzz. At about three-minute intervals, it fluttered up in spiraling circles, often 200 feet in the air, making a twittering sound generated by notches in its wings. The bird then silently glided down near its original location. The male repeated the dance moves until it was completely dark (we hoped that we had not scared away any female suitors).
Night photography is notoriously difficult, but I managed several photos that captured this bold fellow who completely ignored my camera flash. My best photo showed its bill opening in an outward curve as the buzzing call was generated. I really enjoyed this year’s woodcock encounter, perhaps another kind of March madness. – Mario Meier
3/16 – Esopus Meadows, HRM 87: I visited the Esopus Meadows Preserve this afternoon. There were no birds in sight or sound and only a few early signs of spring. The willows were budding. The wash line from last week’s flooding event was evident well up above the gravel walkway. Scattered along the greening grass, I spotted the cornflower blue of bird’s-eye speedwell (Veronica persica), native to Eurasia, so small and delicate among the grasses and scattered leaves. All welcome signs that spring was on its way! – Nancy Beard
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3/19 – Yonkers, HRM 18: Our research and education team at the Sarah Lawrence Center for the Urban River at Beczak returned to our tidemarsh this morning at low tide to check our fyke net. The number of glass eels (39) had fallen since yesterday (it seems we were between pulses of glass eels). Again, today, we had two mummichogs
The water temperature was 47 degrees F, salinity was slightly elevated to 1.5 ppt, and the dissolved oxygen (DO) was 11.0 ppm. – Jason Muller, Jordyn Medina, Maria Cecconello, Fran Kenney
3/22 – Town of Wawayanda, HRM 47: At first light, the air was 22 degrees F—a penetrating, chilling cold. Several hardwoods, buffered by the edge of dense woodland, had served as night roosts for more than a dozen black vultures.
Four of Those 12 Black Vultures!!
Rather than keep watch on them—they looked like frozen, unmoving duck decoys—I spent a couple of hours perusing the Black Dirt looking for notable wildlife. When I returned, not a single vulture had left, nor had any showed any evidence of even minor movement.
New World vultures (Cathartidae), turkey vultures and black vultures for us, are poor fliers. Once aloft, they soar as well as any raptor, teetering on wide-spread wings. But to escape their night roost, gracefully, they need post-dawn thermals, relatively warm air rising to give them much needed lift.
It was nearly 10:00 a.m. before they began to test the air and, one-by-one, lift off. They are a joy to watch: their ungainly ascent, wings that seem too long, short tails, legs hanging out the back, coal black feathers, and whitish underwing patches that reflect silver in even light. They are an altogether exquisite bird. – Tom Lake
With the Fish of the Week being:
3/21 – Hudson River Watershed: Fish-of-the-Week for Week 261 is the gray triggerfish (Balistes capriscus), number 231 (of 237) on our watershed list of fishes.
A Gray Triggerfish!!
The gray triggerfish is our sole representative of Balistidae (triggerfishes) in the Hudson River. While they range from Nova Scotia to Argentina, their center of abundance is coastal Maryland south to Florida and east to Bermuda. Gray triggerfish is considered a temperate marine stray for the estuary, but most other triggerfishes are commonly found in the tropical waters of the southeast and Caribbean.
Gray triggerfish is a benthic (bottom) species; their body is primarily gray, laterally compressed (thin), and deep-bodied, not unlike a large diner plate standing on its edge. Their trivial name, capriscus is from the Latin caprinus, meaning “of goats,” possibly a small goat. The translation refers to the gray triggerfish’s inscrutable face that, to some, looks like a goat.
They primarily feed on invertebrates, mollusks, and crustaceans, and can reach 25-inches and weigh 14 lb. They get their common name from their spiny dorsal fin that can be used as predator-defense from being swallowed. They have a small mouth with a strong jaw and specialized teeth used to crush and chisel holes in their hard-shelled prey. Fresh or smoked, gray triggerfish, where advisable, are of excellent culinary quality. – Tom Lake
And now, the actual Bird of the Week:
Not a very brief newsletter, huh? Oh, well…
Bring on that congestion pricing…
And be voting Tuesday if you haven’t already,
UGS
This Week at The Markets 