Earth Day 2021 in New York City could be called “Brrrth Day” as it began with Fahrenheit temperatures in the 30s.
Sun in a sky dotted by bright clouds has added little warmth on account of high winds, but the light, so spring clear and pure as to sharpen and magnify everything, shines on the new green leafing out as well as a full spectrum of spring flowers both domesticated and wild.
Happy Earth Day 2021
— rPs 04 22 2021
Earth Day 50 . . .
The Globe by Kim Brandell on Earth Day 50 Morning.
(NYC 04 22 2020)
Ten years ago on Earth Day 40 I walked in Central Park and wrote of the lovely clear spring day it was and how nature and the city seemed to be in ecological balance.
Ten years later we find New York City like the rest of the world locked down in the midst of a global pandemic. The weather is the same, even more intensely clear and crisp, but the human activity is mostly absent.
My everyday life has me fall under the category of “essential (healthcare) worker” who also happens to work the night shift. My morning commute home, a healthy walk rather than a horrid subway ride, today took me through Central Park to revisit the view of a decade ago, which remains the same except for the spikes of several new supertall condominum towers stretched along the width of Central Park South.
Viola sororia, bi-colored form, claims a crack near Columbus Circle.
(NYC 04 2020)
My strongest impression is that the high blue sky clear of jet vapor trails and streets devoid of the numbing hum of peak vehicular traffic have given the city, in fact the entire planet, a pause to catch its natural breath. It’s as if the Earth is itself a meta unicellular creature exclaiming: “Thank you for ceasing to stress me with all that bad gas. Here is a perfect spring day as a reward.”
Earth Day 50: ironically the most beautiful Earth Day I have so far witnessed. May it not be the last.
The Lake in Central Park.
(NYC 04 22 2020)
— rPs 04 22 2020
Postscript: Time Does Fly. Read about Earth Day 40 here: https://wildflowersofthewestvillage.com/2010/04/22/earth-day-40-on-the-fly/
Earth Day 49 . . .
The author of Philadelphia on the Fly celebrates Earth Day “by the book” . . .
(Planet Earth 04 22 2019)
Earth Day has reached the cusp of a human’s middle age. The planet remains older, larger, and more important than all of us people put together. Let us try, at least try, to be stewards and gardeners and protectors rather than mere users of our one and only green, white, and blue home.
Trout lily and others spring into being.
(04 2019)
Earth Day 2019.
— rPs 04 22 2019
Earth Day 48 . . .
A Good Sign
(NYC 04 22 2018)
Earth Day 48 in New York, New York: bright sun under a bluebird sky, air still chill, trees just in the mood to flower.
The open ground has begun to be graced, laced with a scattering of new blooms, some wild:
Blue
Scilla siberica
Gold
Ranunculaceae
Spring has certainly “felt late” this 2018. Clouded rain has dominated, interspersed by days, like today’s Earth Day, as bright as can be.
Bittercress Brassicaceae Bathed In Brightness
Happy Earth Day 48!
– rPs 04 22 2018
Earth Day 2017 . . .
Trout Lily, Erythronium americanum
(04 2017)
Happy Earth Day 2017 from Wildflowers of the West Village . . .
Skunk Cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus
(04 2017)
— rPs 04 22 2017
Earth Day 2015 . . .
Heart of the Earth:
An escarpment of Manhattan schist in Riverside Park, Spring.
(photo taken 04 2015)
Happy Earth Day . . .
Lesser Celandine, Ranunculus ficaria, in bloom, Upper West Side.
(photo taken 04 2015)
. . . from Wildflowers of the West Village.
Forsythia Wall, West Village.
(photo taken 04 2015)
— rPs 04 22 2015
Earth Day 2014 . . .
Yellow Trout Lily In Bud. (photo taken 04 2014)
Happy Earth Day 2014 from Wildflowers of the West Village!
Click on the following link to learn more about the holiday:
Meanwhile, enjoy these recent photos of one of the season’s most attractive wild herbaceous plants, the Yellow Trout Lily, Erythronium americanum.
Yellow Trout Lily In Bloom. (photo taken 04 2014)
— rPs 04 22 2014
Earth Day 2013 . . .
Trillium grandiflorum blooming in Manhattan (photo taken 04 21 2013)
The last two days have presented me with a lot of opportunities to photograph wildflowers, including blooming white trillium; a living gem of early spring. I also found the less appealing chance to pick up and dispose of the loose plastic trash that has come to plague outdoor spaces over the last three decades.
My person Earth Day appeal is DON’T LITTER, PLEASE. The outdoors is not a resource to use or consume, it is a charge to keep . . . clean.
This Earth Day in New York was the opposite of last year’s washout. The weather was clear, bright, and windy; nice enough for me to take a day trip to Prospect Park in Brooklyn. The day contained an entire story I plan to post later in the week. Until then –
Happy Earth Day . . .
– rPs 04 22 2013
Earth Day 42 . . .
The side courtyard of The First Presbyterian Church in New York City on 5th Avenue glows green during the first rainfall in weeks. (photo taken 04 22 2012)
Earth Day 42 can be called the day the rains came. At last! New York is reported to be nearly nine inches short of the average amount of precipitation expected for the region. Bluebird skies and dry, windy days have filled the winter and spring of 2012. Low water levels have brought up drought concerns on the news and on angling message boards. And then near midday on Earth Day, a nor’easter arrived, giving the city its first drink in several weeks.
This has been the first Earth Day in quite some time in which I was not out and about in nature, either fishing, cycling, or simply exploring. The rain kept me indoors except for a quick walk with my wife to Union Square where we dropped off recyclable items like batteries; a chore that, in hindsight, fit the theme of the day.
The green lining to the gray rain has been the quick invigoration of the trees and gardens throughout the city. While conscientious people around the globe celebrate the ecosphere of the earth, the planet itself, at least over this one populated corner, has returned the favor with its greatest gift: life-giving rain.
Happy Earth Day!
– rPs 04 22 2012
Earth Day 41 on the Fly . . .
A carpet of Marsh Marigold (Caltha pulustris) covers the banks of French Creek in Phoenixville, PA. (photo taken 04 22 2011)
Last year I celebrated the 40th anniversary of Earth Day by fly fishing in Manhattan’s Central Park. This year, because of the Easter and Passover holidays, my wife and I found ourselves in her hometown of Phoenixville, PA.
The urban angler, my literary alter ego (and primary job description), finds a home away from home in this attractive red brick steel town located in Pennsylvania’s Chester County. A tributary of the Schuylkill River, French Creek, flows just five blocks from the home of my wife’s parents. We began to fly fish there last year and discovered a fine and scenic fishery for brown trout, fallfish, and the ocassional smallmouth bass and sunfish.
No fish were encountered during this year’s inagural outing. The spring has sprung slowly here and the day progressed under a gray nimbus sky. A thin rain made conditions right for early season trout fishing, (low light, a sustained evening insect hatch), but the fish were not to be encountered along the stretch we explored with the dry fly, wet fly, and streamer. We did see some interesting bird species (tufted titmouse and belted kingfisher) and several varieties of blooming wildflowers, including the Marsh Marigold (Caltha pulustris) which I described last year as “The Fly Fisher’s Flower” . . .
https://wildflowersofthewestvillage.com/2010/04/15/the-fly-fishers-flower/
Happy Earth Day (#41) !
– rPs 04 22 2011
Wildflowers of the West Village 