Weekend review

Another beautiful day. Loads of bugs (Thank you, wet spring), but they seem to be keeping to themselves. Well, I say that, but they seem to go after my daughter a lot. Diet? Genes? Who knows? I certainly eat my share of sweets, and more, but I also eat a lot of whole grains, which supposedly contain all those great B vitamins that make you less attractive to insects. Nice to know I'm doing something right with my menu.

All of the geese seem to be at the Western end of the lake. Didn't notice gosling, but I didn't look too closely either. Busy picking up trash from the weekend, as was everyone else. Two day weekends are not QUITE as bad as 3 day weekends, but the day after is still pretty bad. There was a nice looking family group at BBQ Plaza yesterday, which might explain why the trash was prettily neatly packed. THANK YOU!!

Turtles out already - at 7:30! Lets you know what a nice day it is.

Dear Anonymous: You asked if the gosling + family could have walked from Doggie Beach area to the Lake. Probably not, but they could have swum. The waterways in the park are so wonderful, that most people forget that it is a totally fake system, and one system only, starting from the general area near Doggie Beach. The geese could have easily swum, walking around the various waterfalls. For a more detailed explanation, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospect_Park_%28Brooklyn%29 This is part of Wikipedia, which I normally HATE, HATE, HATE, because of its frequent subjectivity and slants, but this article seems pretty clear and objective.

1 gosling, about 25 geese

So we had a lovely walk around the lake today, looking for geese and other assorted birds. N and her husband and the dog (Chewie) decided to have a nice Sunday morning lie-in instead of 7 AM off to the park. What could they be thinking (:) ? Anyway, since JJ is not so nearly as playful as Chewie, we all enjoyed the walk.

Anyway, there was a flock of about 12 geese in the Southwestern part of the Lake, near what I call the beach. Another small flock, about 11, was by the Southern shore of the lake, just past the three islands. And there, just before the little communal space that the Haitians use, was the nice young goose couple with their one gosling that daughter and hubby saw the other day. No idea if the gosling is in good health. at first, it was just sitting on the grass, but then it got up and walked around and ate. And that was it. No other geese that we could see.

There were also 4 strange looking birds in the trees of the three islands. They looked larger than cormorants, maybe vultures. We are not good at bird identifying. Anyone know what they are?

Swan family was happily swimming in the Lullwater, eating lots and lots of weeds.

Very interesting that the geese were all in their flocks at 7:30-ish when we arrived, but had separated by the time we were leaving at a little after 9.

We also had a great time later in the day at a Petanque (aka Boule) tournament in the Parade grounds. Wonderful throwing techniques, friendly people. There's a photo of me with the President of the Petanque Club!

Gosling on the lake!!!!

So, today it cooled down a little and it was a beautiful day - not too warm, a little breezy. So of course I slept in, since I haven't been getting quite as much sleep as I should in the past few days of very hot, humid weather. Luckily, my daughter and husband took the dogs to the park, and it was great. N got a picture of one of the new goslings being taken around the lake by it's parents!! What a happy looking family. Hope they stay that way.

They also saw Ed and Tony and talked to a WINS 1010 reporter about the BBQ situation. Maybe they'll be on radio. Apparently Ed and Tony want BBQing eliminated. N made the point that she really doesn't care if people BBQ, as long as they CLEAN UP AFTER THEMSELVES. What an intelligent, sensible, and possibly visionary girl.

To Anonymous, yesterday's commentator who referred to PP as a garbage dump. Well, yes it sometimes is, but a lot of people work to clean it up, and there are some very good days. Why not give it another try, just not on a 3-day weekend or a couple of days after?


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Later the same day:

We went out to Sheepshead Bay for a movie (Bridesmaids; pretty good) and a bite (at TGIF's) and saw, as we ate, on Plumb Beach Channel, a swan family with 5 or 6 cygnets!! Born two weeks ago, sailing around just outside TGIF's windows, just beautiful!!!