The museum event

On July 8 I helped launch the paperback publication of Central Park in the Dark with a talk, reading and slide show at the American Museum of Natural History. After the talk the audience was invited to experience night in the park in real life. Among the largish group of people who showed up at Turtle Pond, where Star-gazing, bat-watching and insect-attracting stations had been set up, were Scott and Alla Sobel. Scott sent me a few photos he'd taken that night of some of the critters he'd encountered:

At the edge of Turtle Pond







At the moth light:







All these moths were small--too small to appear in the Moth field guide -- I describe the difficulties of its use in Central Park in the Dark
I'll send them to Hugh McGuinness, a moth expert who also plays a role in the book, and see if he can come up with IDs. I'll post them if he responds.

And many thanks to Scott Sobel! I hope the rest of you who were there had as good a time as I did. The rings of Saturn! The single clicking bat! The almost-full moon rising. The kids racing around from station to station!

Huge thanks also to the people at Picador Books and at the American Museum who helped organize the evening and made everything run smoothly.

Manhattanhenge on 57th St.

Mitchell Nussbaum, an owl-watcher and amateur astronomer, has sent in two great photos dated July 12th. They show the phenomenon known as Manhattanhenge, taken with the sun setting at the west end of 57th St.


photos by Mitchell Nussbaum - July 12, 2009

Duck Lake

What has caught Central Park's visitors' attention at the Model- boat Pond, even the jaded pigeons' who have seen it all?

It's the 7 ducklings and their mother.

I watched them exercise with the precision of the corps de ballet performing "Duck Lake," the ultimate hawk defense maneuver!

Photos and captions by Murray Head