A Walk to Crawbuckie Preserve and Back – Overview

by Posted in Landscapes, Woodland Leave a comment
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According to InOssining.com

Ossining’s Crawbuckie Park / Nature Preserve is a woodland riverfront park and preserve accessible by car via Beach Rd. Parking is available at the entrance to the park’s trails, at the end of Beach Rd. The preserve is on the edge of Brayton Park, part of the North Village neighborhood.

Take a walk through the Edward M. Wheeler Crawbuckie Nature Preserve! For some beautiful early-morning light, start as much before 9:00 AM as you can muster the troops. Check out some pictures below.

There are 20+ acres of natural Hudson River Valley rain forest (it seriously looks like a rain forest in places) in this preserve. There are lovely trails that wind through the forest, where you will often see the river glimmering at you through the trees, and in some spots a more open Hudson River view. There are trees like cathedrals that are 3 and 4 feet in diameter. Some of these trees date back to when the area was home to Dr. Benjamin Brandreth’s 35-room mansion Glyndon.

A real highlight is the symphony of bird songs. Against the quiet of the woods their calls seem to be played through a loudspeaker. The preserve is populated by numerous bird species due to its huge diversity of trees. Ossining resident Robert Havell Jr. was the engraver for John J Audubon’s seminal work Birds of America (the “world’s most expensive book “). Audobon collected and studied in the Crawbuckie area.

But even though the purpose of my walk was to go to Crawbuckie I would pass much more along the way there and back: abandoned structures, strange festive decorations, an old home once owned by a very famous author. I would stop at a nearby diner for brunch and then continue along an historical trail into town. There I would take a short diversion to one of Ossining’s most famous monuments. By then I was tired and my feet hurt so another stop was in order, this time in a wonderful bookstore where I could sit an rest for a while. From there it was a relatively short, but unfortunately almost all uphill walk home.

Taken with a Sony RX10 IV

Walkway over the Hudson

by Posted in Buildings/Structures, Landscapes, People Leave a comment
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A while back I went for a walk over the Walkway over the Hudson. It’s a steel bridge spanning the Hudson River between Poughkeepsie, New York, on the east bank and Highland, New York, on the west bank. Built as a double track railroad bridge, it was completed on January 1, 1889. A fire caused it to be taken out of service in 1974. It was reopened on October 3, 2009, as a pedestrian walkway, part of the Walkway Over the Hudson State Historic Park. It claims to the world’s longest elevated pedestrian bridge.

Even though it opened it 2009, this was my first visit. I was impressed by the stunning views.

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Sojourner Truth Statue

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Downtown Poughkeepsie

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Taken with a Sony RX10 IV

Clouds

by Posted in Abstracts Leave a comment
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As I was leaving the Historical Society the other day I noticed some lovely light on the clouds. Reminded me a little of Alfred Stieglitz’s series, “Equivalents”.

Equivalents was a series of photographs of clouds taken by Alfred Stieglitz from 1925 to 1934. They are generally recognized as the first photographs intended to free the subject matter from literal interpretation, and, as such, are some of the first completely abstract photographic works of art. Stieglitz called these photographs Equivalents and argued that visual art could assume the same nonrepresentational, emotionally evocative qualities as music. The images experiment with camera and darkroom techniques to create abstract fields of light and dark, and became one of the 20th century’s most vital visual traditions.

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Taken with a Sony RX10 IV

First snowfall of 2024-2025

by Posted in Nature, Trees Leave a comment
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We had our first snowfall of the year today. It looked like there was a fair bit, but when I took out the garbage the driveway was clear and so was Holbrook Road. It’s pretty much all gone now, except for bits on grassy surfaces. I usually take a picture in the garden or in the meadow, but this time it was such a light snowfall I just took a picture of this leaf on what little snow there was. Although there wasn’t much snow it’s still a miserable cold, windy, rainy/snowy day so I’ve decided to stay home today.

Taken with a Sony A7IV and Samyang 45mm f1.8