Music and Musings

While Abbie spends this week exploring Canadian flora and fauna I will be filling in with my own (more primitive) Minnesota observations.

I rolled out of bed this morning with the expectation of spending a quiet, meandering morning being delighted by childlike discoveries of my surroundings in and around the Walker Sculpture Garden. Though my wanderings were pleasant, the field and garden were fluttering with activity. Of course! It's a mere day before Rock The Garden, the Walker's annual outdoor music festival. The field and garden were bustling with Walker staff, news crews, and contracted help zipping around like Fraggle Rock (the garden) Doozers to prepare for the event. There also appeared to be a morning wedding ceremony taking place in the Cowles Conservatory. In the midst of all the bustling I did manage to make some exciting discoveries.

I begin with my red-winged blackbird sighting not because they are uncommon to the area but because of my fondness for them. When I moved to Minnesota they were the first new bird I was able to identify.

What: Foraging red-winged blackbird
Where: West side of Walker Sculpture Garden
Observer: Lindsay
Date/Time: June 17, 10:15am
Conditions: Sunny and humid

What: Musicians warming up before a ceremony
Where: Cowles Conservatory
Observer: Lindsay
Date/Time: June 17, 10:18am
Conditions: Cool and stagnant

I have just recently become interested in the act of birding and have great respect for those who do it well primarily because I am realizing that it requires a level of patience that I have not yet cultivated. The above image is one I made while stalking a cardinal, a beautiful bright red cardinal that was not interested in my photographic advances.

I like the anticipation of this image. When will the dahlias begin popping out of the soil? I'll have to go back throughout the summer and check in.

What: Honka dahlia markers
Where: Alene Grossman Memorial Arbor and Flower Garden
Observer: Lindsay
Date/Time: June 17, 10:35am
Conditions: Sunny and humid


I love watching ducklings following their mothers. They look like they must be attached by a magnetic force of some kind. When I was a child I had this game called "Are You My Mother?". It's a little traumatizing now that I think about it. It was a board game with a farm scene depicted on it. Around the board there were little cardboard hens with magnetic bases. The player was a baby chick that also had a magnetic base. The object of the game was to move around the board and find out which of the hens was the chick's mother. The parent hen would reveal itself through its "attraction" to the chick (or a magnet with the opposite charge). Clever, really. Because of this game I will forever associate motherhood with magnets.

What: Ducklings dutifully following mother duck
Where: Under Oldenburg's Spoonbridge and Cherry
Observer: Lindsay
Date/Time: June 17, 10:45am
Conditions: Sunny and humid

Thank you to Abbie for letting me fill in. What a pleasure to spend the morning taking in the activities of a sunny June day, camera in hand and eyes wide open. It should be a mandatory activity for us all.