 Thank you for all for the letters of concern. I'll reply to each one of you. Wednesday Dec 8, 2004 I cannot and will not tell you about interpretations of law and all about amendments and the like because I do not understand that kind of stuff. What I can tell you is that right now there are two creatures out there in Central Park sleeping in a tree which they choose tonight after a very trying day. A day which experiences neither had any other day in their life. Were they distressed today? I cannot say they were, in the human way anyway. What I saw this morning was Pale Male surfing on the light wind that rushed from the busy Fifth Avenue up along the solid sculptured walls of those majestic Upper Eastside buildings. He surfed and soared and flapped once in a while, and then he’ll disappear behind this building, then that tree, only to reappear from somewhere that no one was even looking. Presently he’s doing a dive, then there—he’s levitating on an upward draft—but no that’s not him—too dark—it must be Lola. Lola it is. Bearing a twig in her beak they fly in a small circle. Your eyes are compelled to follow them and you feel an injustice to have to fix your eyes on only one for fear you loose them both. And Pale Male flies with his confidence and his valor slightly upstream of his large broad wings and he dives and is lost behind a tall European Linden even if it is bare of all it leaves. You search for him to emerge again because your thirst for his beautiful gliding has not been satisfied for the moment, and you see him appear much higher that you anticipated behind a tree that you couldn’t imagine and he carries in his beak a large twig, forked on the one side and longer on the other which makes you believe it not balanced, but balanced it is. He carries the large appendage with little effort. But where does he carry such a twig? He scrapes close to the buildings and gains his altitude. He has done this so many thousands of times before. He knows where every little draft shoots up, knows where it’s too thin and warrants a wholesome flap. He knows where and when to extend his primaries and when to brake and fold. Nothing’s different today except for the landing. Something’s amiss. It’s harder that he calculated. It does not have the spring and the dampened rest that his weary talons have grown to expect. Something is amiss indeed, so he stands on the bare cold arch and places his forked twig under his foot and stares out at the Park and finds Lola, whom still circling, has decided to postpone her strange landing. Does he panic? There is no such thing for him. The cushioning on the nest must be amended. More twigs he’ll have to harvest and he sets off without delay. But he looks this way and then that, and wonders—something is surely amiss for the new twigs will not stay. Wednesday Dec 8, 2004 Meanwhile all today Pale Male and Lola can be seen flying around in small circles and standing on their bare nest site with meagre twigs in their mouth ready to repair. However the very important spikes are missing and the twigs won't hold. Who will tell these innocent animals what our fellow humans has done to them? Meanwhile limosines and towncars keep pulling up in front of 927 Fifth Avenue where the home owners go and sleep snuggly in their warm full floor dwellings. |