Bob Levy's Turtle Yoga class

If you saw the Marie’s posting of “Turtle Yoga” on September 27th you might have the suspicion that this image is a setup. I assure you it is not. I found these two turtles engaged in a yoga class in the same spot as the first two. I had to laugh out loud when I saw them holding the same yoga pose but now facing away from each other instead of face to face. The large turtle may be the same one in the early image but after studying both image I am now unsure what species this is. It might be a Cooter (not a Red-eared Slider as I thought) but I would be grateful to one of your readers if they could identify it. The smaller critter is definitely a Red-eared Slider unlike the smaller yoga practitioner in the September 27 posting. That one was a Painted Turtle


But Hold On! As the camera pulls away from these two subjects it reveals three turtles are actually in attendance at this yoga session. The third practitioner is also a Red-eared Slider. Perhaps this is a sign of things to come? I surely will be keeping my eye and camera out for an even larger yoga class should I find it. Until my next report please remember: don’t strain and remember to breathe.

It's all relative

Tom Clabough, one of Central Park's amateur astronomers who on most clear nights generously share their optical equipment and expertise on the northeast corner of the Great Lawn, sent me a fascinating lesson in relativity. Tom writes:

I thought I'd send you some amazing illustrations depicting the comparative sizes of some familiar celestial objects. Keep in mind as you're viewing them that the Sun is roughly one million miles in diameter. But if you think that's big, wait til you see how it compares to Arcturus and Antares!

Scale model --[from left, back row] Jupiter, Saturn,
[middle row]:Uranus, Neptune,
and then the little ones in front row, from left:
Earth, Venus, Mars, Mercury and the moon


Scale Model -Earth, Venus, Mars, Mercury and [the little gray one] the moon


Scale Model of some stars - [from right] Arcturus, Pollux [one of the Twins constellation], Sirius and [the tiny one] our Sun.

Pale Male--the song lyrics

Pale Male getting ready for the night -- Wednesday, October 3, 2007
courtesy Palemale.com

Jan Lipert, a long-time reader of this website, wrote to ask for the lyrics to the Steve Earle song about Pale Male I posted as an MP3 yesterday. I thought others might like to see them --not always easy to understand all the words in the sung version -- so here they are, from Steve Earle's website. [Found the lyrics by googling "Down Here Below "and "Earle"]

Down Here Below

Pale male the famous redtail hawk performs wingstands high above midtown Manhattan
Circles around for one last pass over the park
Got his eye on a fat squirrel down there and a couple of pigeons
They got no place to run they got no place to hide

But pale male he’s cool, see ‘cause his breakfast ain’t goin’ nowhere
So he does a loop t loop for the tourists and the six o’clock news
Got him a penthouse view from the tip-top of the food chain, boys
He looks up and down on fifth ave and says “God I love this town”

But life goes on down here below
And all us mortals struggle so
We laugh and cry
And live and die
That’s how it goes
For all we know
Down here below

I saw Joe Mitchell’s ghost on a downtown ‘A’ train
He just rides on forever now that the Fulton fish market’s shut down
He said ‘they ain’t never gonna get that smell out of the water
I don’t give a damn how much of that new money they burn’

Now hell’s kitchen’s Clinton and the bowery’s Nolita
And the east village’s creepin’ ‘cross the Williamsburg bridge
And hey, whatever happened to alphabet city?
Ain’t no place left in this town that a poor boy can go

But life goes on down here below
And all us mortals struggle so
We laugh and cry
And live and die
That’s how it goes
For all we know
Down here below

Pale male swimmin’ in the air
Looks like he’s in heaven up there
People sufferin’ everywhere
But he don’t care

But life goes on down here below
And all us mortals, struggle so
We laugh and cry

Pale Male in song

Pale Male at Great Lawn - October 1, 2007
photo courtesy of Palemale.com


I don't know how many of you can successfully download this file --sent to me by Ed Lam, the great dragonfly and damselfly expert and once a Central Park Regular. The song features Pale Male. I enjoyed it when I heard it this morning, and I think you will too.The genre is alternative country and the song is called Down Here Below. I also enjoyed the song's mention of Joseph Mitchell, one of our great American writers, and one of my favorites, in the song's second stanza.