Some willows of Willow Lake.

Identification walk

 

Douglas Fir or spruce? I think it's a fur. 

Scots Pine

Blue spruce.

Sycamore or platanus? I think it's a sycamore.

Oak

Juniper or yew? It didn't have the juniper berries, but it also didn't have the yew berries. Probably juniper.

Pine

Eastern White Pine

As I age, I can tolerate things being unresolved and unknown. Until they had a name for HIV and Aids, it was horrible to have a terrible disease killing people but they couldn't put a word to it. Putting words to things can be really important. Tolerating not knowing is even more important. 

Down at Willow lake the most important trees are willow. I didn't take any photos of trees down there. But I did take this photo:

My daughter saw a snake and freaked out. I was amazed she was charging through the park, a few years ago she walked in and had to turn around right away, she was scared. 

Dawn Redwood or Bald Cypress?

Late summer

My meditation spot is overgrown. There was a fellow standing around singing opera near by, kind of eerie. 

Two workers came by, wondered what they were up to. They said they were looking into expanding the path. 

Biggest carbon producers + info

 

Forest Hills entry is open

Blocked off paths at Willow Lake

I'm glad the lake is open, the gate for the bridge over the highway wasn't locked again today, but then when I got in, they had the path blocked off. Seems kind of absurd to me and I walked down the path to the bridge. The path is a bit difficult to get through to Forest Hills, and the Forest Hills side is locked, last time I checked, I didn't walk that for today. 

Beggars can’t be choosers.

7/26/2025

Purple-loosestrife

Went down to check to see if it was open, and it was open on the Kew Garden Hills side, but when I got. to the Forest Hills side, it was locked!

Closed for the second time in a row

Trying to go to Willow Lake and the gates are locked is really annoying. I went a week prior and it was locked too, so it's been locked for a while. No explanation. Quite annoying. It was closed for a few months this winter.

So I walked down the off ramp, and looked to see if there was a break in the fence of where to break into the reeds. The traffic was so heavy, I was too impatient to cross. Anyway, I think the place to go in is to walk down the on ramp from Jewel. I didn't do that, but I did explore to see if there were any other path, and I couldn't really find them. There's so much garbage dumped there, it's quite disgusting. 

I take exception that they don't say when they will reopen (NYC).

Misconceptions about the environment

This is a post by an ecology PHD student on Reddit:

"Ecology" is such a huge field that covers a lot of different systems and scales, so I don't know if it's possible to identify the biggest misconception, but a few come to mind:

• People not understanding that honeybees are (at least in North America) basically livestock, not native pollinators. And that if you want to "save the bees", focusing on honeybees is one of the worst ways to do it

• Thinking that "forest" is the default healthiest ecosystem and that we should plant trees everywhere to save the planet

• The impact of cats on small bird and mammal populations. Cats kill BILLIONS of animals every year, mostly just for fun. But many people seem to think that it's "natural" to let their cat roam outdoors and hunt whatever it comes across.

Other small and more specific misconceptions include:

• Being upset about culling overabundant deer populations and thinking that we should just "relocate" them

• Extremes of opinion on non-native plant species; either that all non-native plants are invasive and have to be removed, or that there's no such thing as an invasive plant and that we should just leave them all alone

Teasel

Dipsacus fullonum, syn. Dipsacus sylvestris, is a species of flowering plant known by the common names wild teasel or fuller's teasel, although the latter name is usually applied to the cultivated variety D. fullonum var. sativus.[2] It is native to Eurasia and North Africa, but it is known in the Americas, southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand as an introduced species.

Two mallards walked the path with me until there was a turnoff. On the way back they flew away eventually. There was also a mourning dove. 

It's an overcast, drizzly day. 

Catalpa

 

They rain down flowers on the path, quite beautiful, but I don’t want to step on them. Southern catalpa: “The catalpa has the distinction of bearing some of the showiest flowers of all the American native trees.” The natural range of the tree was in central Louisiana, but seems to have adapted all over America and southern Canada.  

Clover, honeysuckle and mulberry

 

Article in honeysuckle. 

Like knowing names

I showed my son my meditation spot, where the turtle came up and meditated with me, and told me I was enlightened. I'm not going to repost a photo here of that, there's a million posts about that spot on here.

I've googled the trees outside my window. One is a Norway Maple, and the other is European Ash (pictured above).

Blue Flag

Snails

Fragrant

Rosa multiflora (syn. Rosa polyantha)[2]is a species of rose known commonly as multiflora rose,[3] baby rose,[3]Japanese rose,[3] many-flowered rose,[3] seven-sisters rose,[3] Eijitsu rose and rambler rose. It is native to eastern Asia, in China, Japan, and Korea. It should not be confused with Rosa rugosa, which is also known as "Japanese rose", or with polyantha roses which are garden cultivars derived from hybrids of R. multiflora. It was introduced to North America, where it is regarded as an invasive species.

I hear at least 3 of these bird songs walking by the lake.

Flowers

 

Saw robins, mourning doves, mallards and red wing black birds.

Rainy foggy day

 

This was the biggest one I saw. There were some blocks to raise up out of the swamp and they were covered with tiny ones that were impossible not to crunch a few. New York is home to over 100 species of land snails.

Birds

This zoomed in photo doesn't have much information, but you can almost see a little of this Starling's color. 

Above is a Mourning Dove. They have white edged tails. 

Saw red winged blackbird first bird Monday. Today was a cardinal, then starling, then dove.

A birder says she sees the eagle once a month. Mentioned osprey.

Revolutionize your soul

Maybe you can have all the things that you've ever dreamed of
Maybe you can drive your hummer down your gold plated streets with your dove
Of all the things you want to buy, how do they make you feel inside?
You won't find your light in the bargain bin
So you better start your path within and
Revolutionize your soul
(revolutionize your soul)

What if you had never seen a skyscraper or a superstar
Going up and down in an elevator never knowing who you are
Of all the things that you have seen
Do you even know where you have been?
Get up right now and look towards the light this may be your last chance to ignite and
Revolutionize your soul
Revolutionize your soul

Willow Lake

I was walking through Willow Lake and I saw a bald eagle. I saw a robins, crows, doves and saw a yellow bird I couldn't identify and I saw an eagle! White feathers around it's head, long wings, gliding along. I ran to try and catch more of it, but it was gone before I got to the lake to try and see it.

There was a bird call. I wasn’t familiar with so I took out my BirdNET app and it said it was a Northern Cardinal.

Says Translife:

When I was a psychotherapist I worked for a year with male to female non-op trans population in East New York. I would have never known about that side of life. None of them really wanted psychotherapy, they all told me that I just wanted to f&%$k them. One wanted the operation, at the time it was $7k in Thailand or Ecuador. She wanted that money, went to a bar to find someone who would sponsor her. That's why some of them do sex work. I could never figure out who would sleep with people like that, and then I had a really handsome patient who was a sex addict, and would go to the bar. It's a side of life I was pretty unaware of and I'm grateful to the trans staff member who talked openly with me. She had to be in a male prison and it was hard to shower with the other men when she had boobs. Another patient said he liked prison the best, he was the girlfriend of top dog and was treated the best she's ever treated when she was in jail. Hard for her to not want to go back. 

My heart goes out to that population and for the evil current regime to demonize them, use transphobia to score political points horrifies me. I thought about working with the population for a while but I thought it would be too much for me to always be accused of wanting to sleep with them, I found that unpleasant and untrue, and I didn't like to have to say the opposite, no I wasn't attracted to them, that felt like a weird kind of cruelty and none of their business.

I feel like trans hate is unnatural. If you really met someone who was trans and talked to them, you'd realize it was a cruel genetic joke to be born feeling like you were the wrong gender. I read a lot and didn't really read anything good till I read the graphic novel Gender Queer. Which was actually about a woman, who at times felt like she was a man. One of the therapist I worked with went female to male, had top surgery. She would always razz me like a man, it was weird, once the started getting shots of testosterone. The woman I worked with died. There used to be a night they read off every transperson who died in NYC. Many are killed, but there are also health complications and the woman who did sex work get HIV. Just like gay people, some people feel revulsion when they think about it, and don't have the awareness to realize their revulsion doesn't mean they can persecute someone, and the current regime encourages that. I'm hoping this is a step back to which we take two huge steps forward soon. 

Purple & pink

Walked by the lake, red winged blackbirds, thought I saw some type of maybe blue jay. 

Guys working on the bridge. I thought of how the Cyclone is rebuilt many times a year out of wood. This bridge is on top of an old bridge.

Planted some more wildflower seeds

Saw a black Mallard come out of the water and then go back into the water. Saw turtles bobbing their head above the water and taking a look around. The flight path means there’s a new airplane coming in every 90 seconds, over Lefrak City and Forest Hills. Planted some more wildflower seeds. 

Spring & Starlings

I saw a black bird, smaller with specs, looked it up and it said European Starling.

New book on Starling: Starlings: The Curious Odyssey of a Most Hated Bird by Mike Stark, reviewed in the Wall Street Urinal:

“...the species’ deliberate 1877 introduction to New York City by a wealthy “man of leisure” named Eugene Schieffelin, the scion of a pharmaceutical family and an avid student of birds.”

"Chasing the Ghost Bear (2022), writes in lavish detail of the ecological train wreck that swiftly followed as Schieffelin kept importing crates of starlings, as well as house sparrows, skylarks, nightingales and bullfinches.”