Red-Tailed And Prey ...

“Nature can seem cruel, but she balances her books.”

      ~ Alison Lurie

~Pulitzer Prize winning American novelist

        ~ born 1926 

I love nature, but it can be cruel, such as in seeing this red-tailed hawk and its prey – a squirrel – on an early September evening in the waning summer at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

I was lucky enough to capture several shots of the hawk as it had its supper – though I felt so sorry for the squirrel! This was the last photo I snapped, the only one where the hawk looked up and straight at me, as if to say don’t come near my prey!

                  

 

October Along The Delaware ...

“I’m so glad I live in world where there are Octobers.”

                  ~ L.M. Montgomery

                   ~ 1874-1942

October’s beauty brilliantly dots the banks of the Delaware River in Raubsville, Pennsylvania on a beautiful autumn afternoon along the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail).

I captured this shot after setting off from the Wy-Hit-Tuk Park Trailhead, Easton, Pennsylvania.

The trail is positioned between the Delaware River and Delaware Canal, which was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978. The site possesses national significance in commemorating the history of the United States of America.

Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.

 

Wy-Hit-Tuk means “river”" in the Native American language of the Lenape, the American Indians who lived throughout the Delaware River Basin at the time of European contact.
 

A Moravian In Paris ...

“I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.”

  ~ Garry Winogrand

    ~ 1928-1984

  ~ American street photographer from the Bronx, New York, known for his portrayal of U.S. life and its social issues, in the mid-20th century. Though he photographed in California, Texas and elsewhere, Winogrand was essentially a New York photographer.

An umbrella portraying the Eiffel Tower and the Moravian Star are the stars showcased in a window display of “Paisley Sun – A Luminous Gift Shop” in historic downtown Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Scenes of Main Street, feted for Christmas, are reflected in the window on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, when the area was bustling with early Christmas shoppers.

A Moravian star (German: Herrnhuter Stern) is an illuminated Advent, Christmas or Epiphany decoration popular in Germany and in places in America and Europe where there are Moravian congregations. The stars take their English name from the Moravian Church, originating in Moravia. In Germany, they are known as Herrnhut stars, named after the Moravian Mother Community in Saxony, Germany, where they were first commercially produced.

Bethlehem is known as The Christmas City. On Christmas Eve 1741, in a stable, while a small group of Moravians were singing a hymn with the stanza “Not Jerusalem, Lowly Bethlehem” Count Nicolaus Ludwig Von Zinzendorf christened this little town “Bethlehem.” Since that time Christmas in Bethlehem has been central to the city’s identity. From the first documented decorated Christmas tree in America to the efforts of the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce to get Bethlehem nicknamed “Christmas City USA” in 1937, to the current time when both sides of the river boast Christmas markets filled with artisan craft, retail and food vendors, Bethlehem is rife with one Christmas celebration after another.