Random things I saw in Savannah

A church sign, an old Kress department store that's been converted to condos, and a few more of the wonderful mossy trees.

Astronomy Tuesday

Bleak and blue -- the InSight lander took this picture of the Martian sunset in April.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Sunday bird blogging

A boat-tailed grackle on Pinckney Island, and the last of that set of photos.

Because Iran has been in the news (as usual, not for any good reason) I've been looking through photos and have found quite a few I never processed. So there may be some more Iran pictures in the next couple of weeks, before I leave for the first of two planned trips to Canada this summer.

Saturday reflections

A panorama of the West Side on an almost-summer day, as reflected in the glass walls of the Javits convention center.

Urban poetry

When you're definitely not in New York anymore -- sign outside a museum in Savannah.

More cemetery pictures

Haunted Savannah

The Colonial Park cemetery in Savannah was active from 1750 to about 1850, so I was surprised that it seemed so empty, with relatively few headstones scattered over the lawns between the family vaults.

At least part of the land covers a mass grave of 700 victims of a yellow fever epidemic, and many of the headstones were dug up and defaced by Sherman's troops when he took the city in 1864. So the visible headstones do not really bear any relation to the number of people buried there.

It is supposed to be haunted. Of course.

River Street

A few more pictures from Savannah.

The promenade along the river is at a much lower elevation than the surrounding streets and you have to go down one of a series of very steep, slippery staircases to get to it. The former cotton warehouses have been converted into stores and bars and restaurants, and there are stalls selling t-shirts and jewelry and a variety of bourbon and/or peach flavored snacks. It was so crowded I didn't find it very enjoyable and I quickly retreated to the leafy streets above.

Because there's such a difference in elevation, the backs of these buildings are accessed by wooden bridges from Bay Street to the upper stories.

Astronomy Tuesday

And speaking of babies, here are a gazillion baby blue stars.

NGC 4485 probably had a major collision with another galaxy sometime in the distant past, denting the galaxy structure and creating a spectacular stellar nursery.

Image credit: NASA, ESA; acknowledgment: T. Roberts (Durham University, UK), D. Calzetti (University of Massachusetts) and the LEGUS Team, R. Tully (University of Hawaii) and R. Chandar (University of Toledo)

Sunday bird blogging

I suspect even Canadians don't love their namesake geese; they're obnoxious, invasive pests.

But -- babies! I took this picture of goslings in the Greenway by the Hudson right after I came back from Savannah. I saw them -- or a similar flock -- yesterday in the same park and they're neck-high to their parents now, though still covered in down. They grow up so fast!

Saturday reflections

A rainy afternoon in New York City.

The Bird Girl

This statue by Sylvia Shaw Judson became famous when it appeared on the cover of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. (The bowls were not meant to symbolize the weighing of good and evil, but were intended to hold birdseed.)

It adorned a family plot in the Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah for almost sixty years, but after the book became a bestseller so many tourists visited the cemetery the family removed the statue. It's now in the Telfair Museum in Savannah, which is where I took this picture -- the background is just some atmospheric wallpaper.