Attitude is all.
Tag Archive for sj rozan
River report
Still chilly here, but you can’t fool a duck. Two male buffleheads chasing each other around, feeling the start of mating season. Buffleheads fly back to the Arctic to nest and raise chicks, but they start the process down here. Not a female in sight, but still, after they finished arguing over fishing rights (which argument included the losing duck diving, twice, and the winning one diving to chase him up from underwater) and the loser flew away, the winner did the dip-the-head-and-preen thing they show off with. Nobody around to be impressed with him but me.
Not a great photo, but: Da Winnah!
A little later, four red-breasted mergansers paddled by, with their seagull escort. The gulls don’t like the ducks — the gulls don’t like anybody, really — but they often hang around the diving ones because they bring up fish and occasionally drop them. The male mergansers were both showing off for the same female, while the other female just swam on, probably wondering when she’d become chopped liver.
Small flock
Showing off
Seagull escort
Ninth Saturday, one day late
Water slapping wall.
Runner singing to herself.
Traffic whooshing by.
Three construction cranes —
Two bright yellow, one dark red —
Angled on blue sky.
Single bufflehead
Flies in, finds his fishing ground
In river’s center.
Wherein I run my mouth again
Here you go, Episode 80 of the Speaking of Mysteries podcast, in which I’m interviewed by the excellent Les Klinger and his partner in this particular kind of crime, Nancie Clare (Les has many partners-in-crime as he’s involved in many crimes).
Seventh Saturday, three days late, from the Flushing New Year Parade
Red, yellow lions,
Dancing wildly down the street
Stop to greet children.
Drummers all in gold,
Dancers in white, yellow, blue,
Three giant Buddhas.
Dragon rises, falls,
Shimmers in sunlight and wind,
Undulates onward.
KGB Bar, Sat., Feb 13, so come on down!
Subject line says it all: Michael Sears, Joe Gannon, and me at KGB in NYC. 85 E 4th St, 7pm, vodka to warm you, crime fiction to chill you. See you there!
Happy Tsaagan Sar!
Mongolian New Year, that would be. Like anyone else, Mongolians celebrate holidays with food. I haven’t been in Mongolia for Tsaagan Sar, but we did do a lot of eating this last trip. Here’s our guide, Alma, and our drivers, Naara and Ogi, setting up the kitchen:
And here’s one of many memorable meals:
Happy Tsaagan Sar!
Gung Hay Fat Choy!
Best to all in this Year of the Monkey. Took this photo in Singapore, when a monkey family swung through the trees beside us as we strolled a path.
Sixth Saturday
A dozen seagulls
Float calmly on glass water
Pecking at breakfast.
Three Brant geese fly by,
Shadows splayed on river’s blue,
Disappear at pier.
Single mallard swims.
Female left with another.
An old, sad story.
Fifth Saturday
Sky’s furrowed cloud bank
Echoing river’s ripples.
Water’s white and blue.
Ghostly half-moon hangs,
High over far shore’s towers.
Foreign planetscape.
Seagull tips his wings,
Floats low over piling field,
Circles in to perch.
