A little history as of March 10, 2010

For about six months now, my husband Ber has been taking our dog JJ to Prospect Park, here in Brooklyn, every morning. It's a wonderful large park, and dogs can run off-leash before 9 AM in 3 very large meadows (Peninsula, Nethermead, Long). Every day is a little different. At the beginning of this year, when I retired, I started to go with them. Not every day - the newly retired like to sleep in from time to time, just because they can. We climb Lookout Hill, the highest point in Brooklyn, and enjoy the view. We look around at the trash and do not enjoy the view. Until last week, the large pond was very nearly frozen over. The clear space was crowded with swans, ducks, geese, seagulls and pigeons. Sometimes we bring unsalted popcorn to feed them. We've met other people who come, feed the birds, and kind of keep an eye on things. I have started to bring extra plastic bags to pick up some of the trash.
Anyway, as I said, every day seems to bring something new. Last week there was a dead raccoon atop Lookout Hill. We kept JJ from eating it, reported it to the Park Police, and now it is gone. At the beginning of the winter there were 7 swans living on the lake. Now there are 10. One lone male arrived about 6 weeks ago, and a couple arrived the other day - swooping across the sky, making a noisy long landing on the pond to make their presence known. ("We're here, look out, don't bother us.") The swoop was yesterday. Today, we didn't see them, but the pond was almost completely unfrozen today, and the birds are distributed all over.
I'm going to try to make daily observations about what we see.
GOOD THINGS: There were a number of moms with children, all enjoying the gorgeous spring day. Ed and Anne (our swan-loving friends) were feeding the birds -One or two of the swans eat out of their hands. One of the swans has moved to another part of the lake - by Audubon House.
BAD THINGS: Today, there were some bloodstains next to the lake. Looks like someone might have beheaded a chicken or duck. Voodoo? Food foraging? The stains were on a tree root and on one of the square stone blocks that edge the lake. A few small white feathers nearby. Substantial trash on the steps up Lookout Hill. 18 crack bags today (8 yesterday, 13 the day before). The crack bags were all accompanied by beer cans and cigar wrappers. Mancave in the park??? The trash can that used to be at the top of Lookout Hill disappeared last week, so there's a big pile of trash. The trash can at the bottom of Lookout, where it comes into the Nethermead, has also disappeared, but I carried my big bagful to the center of Nethermead (one of the few remaining trash cans lives there). What is happening to all the trash cans? Hate to harp on trash, but it's such a beautiful park and it would be nice to keep it so.