Arctic Adventures

The temperature has been below the freezing point pretty consistently lately, which means parts of the East and Hudson river are now frozen.

Because I live nearby Randall's Island I decided to go there first, the East River didn't seem remotely close to being frozen but there were definitely large chunks of ice floating around.

Gee, sure a lot of different tracks in the snow everywhere..

And then....

There were plenty of birds, rabbit, squirrels and I'm guessing fish for them to catch, so they won't starve. It also looked like they found a nice shelter to huddle up in together.

There were cat tracks along the entire path, and I spotted more cats further along the shore.

I call this one "Uncle Breezybum"

More tracks

These look like they were left by a rabbit

I also found the remains of a pigeon, from the looks of it the cats had gotten to it. But I decided against posting a picture of what was left because I can be considerate if I want to ;)

The next day my family told me they heard the Hudson river had frozen over, and it sounded like they wanted me to go check it out.. So I put on a LOT of clothes and bravely underwent the crosstown bus-trek from our place to the Hudson river. The river hadn't frozen shut, but that didn't mean it didn't look (and feel!) absolutely arctic.

Well, that looks... comfy..

No, I didn't rob anyone.

Despite the cold it was strangely calming to watch all the ice floating by, so I made a little movie of it :)

Ahhhhh, zen again...

Valentine's day in Central Park

For this years Valentine's day we decided not to get carried away with the usual madness that surrounds this day. We're far too typically Dutch to actually pay over $100 for a crappy dinner at an overcrowded restaurant, so we headed out to Central Park where there was going to be an ice sculpture festival. That sounded like fun!

Of course, it being valentine's day, we mostly took pictures of each other. Bram said I could use the ones he made for my blog :) It was super romantic!

Special Snowflake!

This dude was chopping ice blocks into a sculpture using a chain saw. Because chain saw.

For some strange reason, this reminded me of my cousin who lives in London.. ;)

Unfortunately, that was pretty much the whole ice sculpture festival... We got bored, so we decided to walk along and see where we'd end up.

King of the Hill!

Other people came by. They were happy to take a picture of us together after we did the same for them.

We missed a great opportunity, as we are planning to do this as well. It was the perfect day for it.

I was trying not to fall on my ass..

Although the timing of this picture of my victorious pose makes it look like I'm auditioning for a Broadway Musical.

Bram felt sorry for the freezing ducks..

While I was captivated by a far more interesting discovery...

A tree full of Cardinal birds!!!! :D

Again; :D

There were at least 10 cardinals in and around that tree, it was fantastic! Bram eventually had to drag me away from there, I couldn't stop grinning though.


After a little while, we wandered into a part of Central Park that is called "the Ramble", a famous site for birdwatchers. And rightfully so! There was one spot where a lot of bird feeders were hung, and all the birds flocked there. Bram tried a little experiment, and to our surprise, it worked! Please excuse the brain farts, I was excited! ;)

After this amazing succes, of course, I had to try it as well :D

Snow White Faiwy Pwincess!

Spot the Canadian..
(It seems unlikely, looking at them, but they were loudly singing a close harmony version of Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat Song", and it was pretty good too!)

Tree hungry. Eat sign.

Bram sometimes calls me Goldilocks, but when I said it would be funny to take a picture of me here he couldn't figure out why and muttered something about grizzlies while giggling to himself...

So I killed him dead.*

* Obviously, I didn't kill him. He's fine. Really.

Blizzard Entertainment

We got some more snow this week (this time without forebodings of imminent death) so I ventured out to Carl Schurz Park for pictures. 

That turned out to be a pretty good idea.

Netherlands represent!

Mine?

Mine? Mine? Mine? Mine? Mine? Mine? Mine? Mine? Mine?

Cute little sparrow begging for food

This guy was awesome! Cardinals are completely new to me, and I think they're absolutely gorgeous. I really wanted to get a picture of one so this made my day!

If anyone can tell me what kind of bird this is, that would be great.

"The" bridge