Day 145 - A wonderful day entirely north of 123rd Street

A weekday afternoon. Overcast. A slight, intermittent drizzle. Warm for late December. Maybe the perfect way to be tramping around looking for owls who fly down from further north to spend winters in Pelham Bay Park.

But owls or not, (not, by the way), this was the first time I made the full loop around the nature trail on Hunter Island at the northeastern tip of the park. Views in virtually every direction were foggy and drear--and magnificent. When we made it further north and looked out past a little bay toward Cat Briar Island, there was virtually nothing convincing you that this couldn't have been 500 years ago--still untrammeled wilderness. A fleet of hundreds of brandts bobbed up and down in the bay just far enough to be inaudible. Smaller squadrons took turns circling in formation on brief missions before landing again. It was like watching a busy Richard Scarry airport from afar. From the water's edge, along the fringe of stands of poplar, oak, jewelberry and dogwood, and staring into the mist with faint outlines of islands further away, it wasn't hard to imagine that this is what the Lennape saw before the Dutch and the English arrived. Not sure if some of my pictures will do it justice.

Matt Symons, a NYC Urban Park Ranger, led me around the northern tip of the island along the Theodore Kazimirioff Nature Trail, up an old carriage road that led to the high point of the island and the estate--long gone--of John Hunter. In its place is a stand of white pine whose softly green needles stood out sharply against the browns and ochres of autumn--more so on a shadowless gray day. These are where the owls would be found if they were sleeping, as they tend to do during the day. (Indeed, we found a few saw-whet owls sleeping afternoon away in this very spot a few years earlier on a less rambling walk.) But not on this day. Our only consolation was the sighting of the extremely rare wild Pinus christmas which was in bud when we came upon it.


The afternoon was framed by lunch at Feroza's Roti, a modest, tasty joint on Burke Avenue in the Allerton section of the Bronx; and dinner at Sisters' for jerk chicken, callaloo & collards on E. 124th St. in East Harlem. Feroza's is a (by now) old favorite, thanks to Matt's introduction a long time ago. It gets mixed reviews and I'm no roti expert, but the conch is excellent. Sisters' was new to me and a great place to catch up with an old friend in the neighborhood.