tags: Manhattan skyline, photography, NYCLife, NYC
A view of eastern Manhattan from a condo on the thirtieth floor on the Upper West Side (ISO, no zoom, no flash). While I was here, I watched a peregrine falcon, Falco peregrinus, repeatedly bomb-dive Pale Male, the famous red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis, as he soared past the buildings over the southern end of Central Park. Unfortunately, my camera was unable to capture this drama as it unfolded.
Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [wallpaper size].
This would have been a much better picture if I could magically make the radiator and window seam go away, and if I had remembered to move the cord for the blinds. In fact, it would have been nearly perfect if I could have done those things because it would have looked like a bowl of seashells floating in the city, sort of like a flying saucer, right?
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Bad news on the photo but good news on the sighting!
Still, you got a bowl of shells and, as a malacologist, that's enough for me.
well, i am going back to the same place tonight and tomorrow, so tune in, and i'll post another image (or two) of the shells -- just for you!
well, and for me, too. i have always been fascinated by shells, and even collected them for quite awhile.
Nice you can enjoy the soaring without having to even have wings! And you get to enjoy those soaring via wings. You have advantages too, like not having to get wet when it rains! LOL!
Dave Briggs :~)
Looks as if there are a couple of cone snails, CONUS, among the shells. I hope they were not live collected. Species of Cones are often overfished for the shell trade. I collect them only as fossils from the Florida Neogene and the Texas Eocene. Shells are often taken live because they look better when live collected and because collectors of exceptionally beautiful or rare shells pay a premium for excellent condition and, where applicable, for presence of the operculum. CONUS toxins are promising sources for new pharmaceuticals, but this genus is vulnerable to over-collecting and probably to general habitat degradation. Sorry for the downer, but when I go to Galveston, I see the shell emporia where one can buy from bins of thousands of shells of hapless tropical mollusks. Galveston beaches are lacking in spectacular shells unless one is willing to sieve the beach drift and collect small specimens with the aid of a dissecting scope (and who would do that except for a techie bore like me), so the tourists are ready to buy fancy specimens to take home. Growl/snarl.