life and wildlife
Here’s what I want to do within the next year: 1.) just take the stupid GRE and get it over with 2.) apply for grad schools and NYC Dept of Health scholarships 2.) open a savings account to start saving money for my own place 3.) use $$ from my promotion (oh yeah I’m getting promoted in October) to fill savings account 4.) move out and get an apartment 5.) get accepted to grad school with amazing scholarships from work that cover all/most of tuition 6.) be able to work full time, go to school part time, maintain apartment, and have free time for myself and loved ones. These are the goals.
Yesterday was a beautiful summer day and I went for a long walk along the newly restored Bronx River Park, a stretch of woods in between the Bronx River Parkway and the Metro-North Harlem line railroad. The walking path begins in Valhalla in northern Westchester and follows the Bronx River until it empties in the East River near Hunts Point in the Bronx. The walking path along the Tuckahoe/Crestwood section of the park near my house have been rebuilt and there’s been a big movement to clean up the river and re-introduce native fish and plant species to the park. I also walked under this really neat bridge, which is apparently quite famous in the architecture world: Crane Road Bridge
I observed the following wildlife during my walk:
- A really really tall tulip tree
- A bunch of mallad ducks
- Brook trout, a few fish were at least 1.5 feet long
- A fish that was either an albino brook trout or someone’s former pet goldfish. Either way it looked it like was it dying.
- An unidentified heron/egret type bird. It was smallish and mostly white, except around the head it was black. Looking through field guides I couldn’t find anything that looked like it. Maybe it was a juvenile or some non-native species that wasn’t supposed to be there.
- A crayfish (or crawfish?), first time I’ve seen one, they really look like mini lobsters. I only saw it a few seconds until it slid underneath a rock.
- A rat, which swam across the length of river to side where I was standing. It swam to the shore a few feet away from me, and hid in the water under some floating plastic bottles. Because a nature walk in New York wouldn’t be complete without seeing a rat.