Navy Yard

The human/nature… intersection? continuum? state-of-being? Whatever you want to call, it certainly is. What it means here on this blog is that I always keep a weather-eye out for manifestations when I’m up to other things. So, checking out the new museum at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, I found this Henson Creature Shop animatronic pigeon. It was used in the movie The Producers (the remake.) There must some be real feathers incorporated, because otherwise that iridescence in the neck is hard to reproduce.

Outside, on a bus tour of the 300 acre facility, I noticed that one of the unused dry docks, now filled with water, was a-float with some waterfowl. Probably Mallards, but too distant to be sure. There were Ring-billed gulls overhead, of course, since we were right on Wallabout Bay (literally: much of the Yard is infill). Along Admirals’ Row, officers’ residencies abandoned since the 1970s, there was a riot of fall foliage madness, with ivy covering most everything nailed down. Poking through the fence, these knotweed seeds tell you why they’re such a successful spreader: lightweight, winged, and ready for the wind.