Comments on: Our Walk In The Park

By: Kirsten

Kirsten — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:32:49 +0000

Aw, shucks — just picked up a lot of random stuff from my mom, and from flipping through bird and plant identification books. I’ll read anything if I’m bored enough

And yes, the tulip trees around here do that exact same thing: bloom first, then the leaves come in later on. It really is an odd look given how spindly the younger trees can be, and quite magnificent on the older ones.

By: wyrdbyrd

wyrdbyrd — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:02:53 +0000

Kirsten, You are my bird and flower hero! I love it that you know all this.

The weird thing about that tree is that it was all bare branches and these big pink and white flowers. So unlikely looking and so cool.

By: Kirsten

Kirsten — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:08:41 +0000

Magnolias are really cool — lots and lots of varieties (over 200) that live in all sorts of places (most outside the US). Some are evergreens, some are not, and the flowers come in a wide array of colors.

In my family, only the variety found in the southeastern US (big, evergreen leaves and large creamy white flowers) are actually called magnolias. We refer to the rest of them as tulip trees. But apparently that’s a name for a particular variety that has yellowish flowers. Oh, well.

By: wyrdbyrd

wyrdbyrd — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:56:27 +0000

Cormorants! Cool. They look like dinasours.

Magnolias! I didn’t know we had magnolias here.

You’re all a bunch of geniuses.

(Oh yes, Isabel is the most beautiful of all!)

By: Jan

Jan — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:53:54 +0000

Beautiful, especially Isabel!

By: yogamum

yogamum — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:02:10 +0000

I was going to say cormorants and magnolias!

The docent on my son’s field trip yesterday pointed out the cormorants to me. She says they have to hold their wings straight out to dry them because, unlike ducks, they don’t have very much oil on their feathers (that way they can dive deeper for fish, etc.).

By: Kirsten

Kirsten — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:08:59 +0000

Charlotte beat me to it, but yup, looks like a double-crested cormorant to me. (I determined which type by looking at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds page, btw — don’t actually keep all that in my head or it’d pop!)

And the flower looks like it’s from some sort of magnolia.

By: charlotte

charlotte — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:21:06 +0000

Hey there! The birds look like kormorants to me, drying their wings in the sun.

That’s a great flower picture, BTW. And Isabel looks so happy!