Wildlife Sightings

Yesterday, Toby and I took our lunch (bagels) in Riverside Park, hoping for the entertainment of squirrels. While we did see a few bushy-tailed critters (one squeaking at us, presumably because we were too close and/or not feeding it), they were not the highlight.

What caught our attention was a giant wasp! It was about 1.5 inches long (EEP!) and carrying a cicada, which was wider and longer than itself. Well, perhaps "carrying" is not the correct word. The wasp was dragging the cicada and fluttering its wings desperately. We then watched it crawl through a hole into its burrow.

After some internet searching (on Toby's part, as I'm squeamish with mere photos of bugs), we learned that these wasps are Cicada-Killers. Females stun cicadas and bring them back to their burrows, lay eggs in these paralyzed beetle-y things, and the larvae get to feast on the cicadas until they pupate. Since cicadas are rather heavy compared to the wasp, she drags the cicada up a tree trunk, then drops/flies with the cicada and hopefully land somewhere near her burrow. That would explain the pair zipping by our shoulders on their way to the burrow across the pathway from our bench.

One website said that the female wasp lays only one egg in each cicada, but another said there were usually only two cicadas in a burrow. So I'm guessing that one of these is incorrect, as I imagine wasps laying many more than just 2 eggs!

Interestingly, there is a another insect that parasitizes the cicada-killer wasps: Cowkillers. Female 'velvet ants' find a cicada-killer wasp's burrow, and lays HER eggs on the cicada-killer's larvae, so that the cowkiller larvae feed on their hosts! (Notice a pattern here?) Cowkillers have rather strong exoskeletons, according to the website Toby found, and emit audible screams when stepped upon. These exoskelelons are to repel any wasp attack should the cicada-killer return while the cowkiller is still laying her eggs. Cowkillers apparently also have terrible stings, perhaps explaining the origin of their name.

Anyway, I won't be posting pictures here (we didn't have our camera in any case), but here's an interesting website if you want to know more about insects:

What's That Bug?

As for me, I hope to avoid running into any cowkillers, and though I can't stand cicadas (do they ever make my skin crawl!), I'd rather not mess with a 1.5-inch wasp either!

Weekend of Natural Cultural Institutions - Bronx Zoo

The Bronx Zoo (located, surprisingly, in the Bronx) is apparently one of the biggest in terms of conservation and research. Recently, I read a story of an orphaned snow leopard found by a Pakistani farmer. His family took in the leopard, first keeping it in their home, and later moving it out to a shed. However, as the cub grew, they knew they needed help, and enlisted the help of some WWF workers nearby. After who knows how much negotiation and preparation, the cub will be coming to the Bronx Zoo (maybe it's already there?), and the Zoo will help Pakistan set up a conservation program to save these endangered large cats.

Anyway, we'd been to the zoo before, but that was in winter, and many of the outdoor animals were not on display. This time, the zoo was a hopping place, on both sides of the fences! The lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) were fun to watch, but everywhere it was too crowded for me to really enjoy watching these wonderful creatures.

We both still enjoyed the indoor exhibits more, which we were able to see during the winter. The Monkey House houses squirrel monkeys, tamarins, and other smaller primates. I'm certainly quite drawn to these smaller primates now that I've had
the experience of petting and feeding one.

We'd visited the Mouse House in winter as well, but only had 4 minutes before closing in which to watch all these cute little rodents bounce around. This time, we were able to spend much more time lingering over their cuteness, our enjoyment punctuated by screeching children in the small enclosed space. One day we'll have a pleasant time visiting with the mice, I hope! Anyway, we were able to catch a pair of flying squirrels copulating! (The only time they were still enough for us to see them clearly, in fact.) I wonder if there will be squirrel babies in another month?

Speaking of which, there were lots of young around the zoo. Each exhibit that had a recent birth was signed, and made people much more interested in seeing the exhibit. The langur monkey baby was tiny, and each monkey in the clan seemed to take turns holding it. This was in the Asian Jungle building, where we also spotted a pair of tree kangaroos who didn't seem to be getting along. The photo shows the weaker one, looking exactly how I thought it felt after being bullied out of the comfy crook in the tree.


We also ventured over to the sea birds colony and watched Magellan penguins swimming and splashing and waddling! Who knew they made so much noise squawking and cheeping at one another?


Speaking of large birds, the birds of prey area was pretty neat. Especially impressive was when one would stretch out its wings, and you could see the 6ft wingspan blocking out your view of everything else nearby! These vultures are definitely not pretty birds, though!

Weekend of Natural Cultural Institutions - Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Last weekend, we ended up checking out two of NYC's institutions: the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and the Bronx Zoo.

What brought us to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden was the flowering of titan arum, aka the "corpse flower" (Amorphophallus titanum). This plant is native to Sumatra, Indonesia, and shoots up a giant flower-like object, which blooms for several days and smells like rotting flesh. It rarely flowers in captivity; in reading about the plant on the web, I found sites which listed every bloom in captivity in the US and Europe! On August 8th, the flower at the Botanic Garden began to bloom. So we figured we had to go and see it! (I first came across it on a webcam that the Garden had set up for this blooming.) The actual huge, red part isn't a true flower; the real flowers are tiny, nondescript bits on the tall middle stalk. And it's from the same family of plants as the calla lily. (You'll probably recognize the same shape.)



It is indeed huge (I think the middle was about 7ft tall), but no longer smelled. We overheard workers saying that by about 9am Friday morning, the smell in the room resembled "New York on a bad summer day". Yucky, but not overwhelming. (Unless you had to hang out in it all day, for days on end, like we do when the weather gets hot and humid!) In true NY fashion, there were long lines to get into the conservatory room which housed the flower. The pot itself was cordoned off, and security was high. Guards kept repeating, "Take your photo and move on." What about those of us who were there to actually learn about the flower, not just take our momento photo and forget about the plant?! Apparently, they didn't have room for us! Anyway, we're thinking of contacting the two botanists whose baby this plant is, and ask more questions, like whether the plant will be on display now that the flower is gone!

After seeing the corpse flower, we wandered along the conservatory buildings, marvelled at the water lily ponds (they have blue waterlilies!), then set off for less-crowded parts of the Garden. Here, we found out what hazelnut seeds look like: weird alien creatures!


We also discovered conifers with giant needles, and I was floored by 4-ft-diameter lily pads!



While wandering around, the clear blue sky was interrupted by 5 jets flying in formation. Not only that, but somehow their jet streams were controlled so as to output white fluffs in a set pattern! This pattern turned out to be an ad for an insurance company! I wonder how expensive that marketing must have been?!

Party Of The Decade!

At least, that's what organizers of the Pokemon 10th Anniversary road tour is calling this extravaganza. It was one of those crazy things that I felt I had to experience.

The Party arrived in NYC on Tuesday, setting up in Bryant Park (basically a block away from Times Square). The location offered much juxtapositioning of opposites; it is often frequented by mid-town suits, who were having lunch and working on their laptops around the perimter of the park. On Tuesday, these serious, money-and-status-driven people were upstaged by thousands of kids with Pokemon t-shirts, Pokemon hats, Pokemon backpacks, and Pokemon game machines.

I think New York was the last stop on the tour, and culminated in the National Championship (for the video game, I'm guessing). There were also stations to download characters onto your personal digital device (PDA's, cell phones, etc.), to try out the new game, and to read about Pokemon's history (began in 1996 in Japan, came to North American in 1998). A stage was set up for dance performances, audience contests, video shows, and appearances by real-life manifestations of the various characters.

I took plenty of photos of the uber-silliness, and how could I not, with so much cuteness around?!

A giant flying Pikachu was featured in the last Thanksgiving parade, and he made another appearance at this event:


People were dressed up as Ash, the nurse, Team Rocket, etc, and signed autographs and had their photos taken with and by tonnes of people:


This Pokemon needed a bit of help walking from the dressing tent to the staging area:


Everywhere around the park were placed pokemon sculptures, about 1-2ft. tall. Some pokemon were cooling off in the ornate fountain in this photo:


I hope I didn't come across as scary as these adults (who were playing the Pokemon card game):


As if a VW Beetle itself weren't cute enough:


How to emasculate a Hummer:

Vacation Photos

Awww... Such a tiny frog! We figured it must have just metmorphosed from a tadpole. Watch out for big feet, little froggy! (I almost stepped on it. Poor guy!)

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While canoeing in a bog, we stopped off on land and surveyed the impressive beaver dam, holding the bog up 5 ft. We also picked blueberries (yum!) and dipped our feet in the water.

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A view of the pond at the Chinese Garden in the Botannical Gardens in Montreal. (Note the background punctuated with Olympic Stadium.)

Back from Holidays

Well, we'd been gone for 2 weeks; approximately one week with Toby's parents in Nova Scotia, then one week in Montreal visiting our brothers. And what a fun time it was!

Toby's younger cousin Nathan was in N.S. for a few days when we arrived. Toby taught him some juggling tricks, he got to go tubing down the river (where you sit in a giant inner tube and float down the river), and searching for snakes and turtles. We ate lobster, had tonnes of desserts, picked raspberries, went canoeing, watched the tide roll into the Bay of Fundy, and played Yatzhee!

We also go to visit the Oaklawn Zoo, which is a small, but really neat, facility in N.S. Got to go behind the scenes and see snake and turtle eggs incubating, and feed the marmosets and tamarins! Whee!

Then, we convoyed out to Montreal. Toby got to fix the muffler strap on his mom's car in the rain. We noticed something was sounding weird, and it took a few stops and investigations to figure out what. It was, unfortunately, Sunday afternoon in the Maritimes. We made it to a Canadian Tire in Fredericton just before closing, and changed the strap in the parking lot. A kind and chatty tow-truck driver was also at the parking lot, dealing with another problem, and lent Toby a bit of a tarp to lie on and some grease-cutting paper towels to clean up afterwards. Toby did get a few scrapes and cuts from the procedure, but it wasn't as bad as it might have been (say, if we hadn't noticed and the muffler fell off the car!).

In Montreal, we were treated to a lovely dinner for Toby's mom's birthday at Le Poisson Rouge, and went to the Botannical Gardens. Les Jardins is a huge place; we'll have to go back another time and see the rest of the gardens! We did see the fabulous Chinese and Japanese gardens, huge lotus flowers, gorgeous bonsai (one was 265 years old!), and Turkish mosaics. Really nifty. My brother and his girlfriend also made us a lovely dinner and we enjoyed ice cream in the humid evening air afterwards. Yay!

Now we're back in NYC. Can you believe it's over 100F today?! That's nearly 40C. Ugh. With the recent blackouts in other boroughs (Queens, for 10 days) and Staten Island (intermittent, over several hours), there's definitely a worry that the entire city will lose power during this heat wave. Let's hope people are heeding the 'conserve power' advice so we're not all left in the dark, and, more importantly, not left without air-conditioning and fans!