'Chappy'

One of the most visited graves in Lake View Cemetery Cleveland is that of a ball player killed while playing with the Indians in the year they first won the World Series (1920). Ray Chapman was a fan favorite. It was the largest funeral in Cleveland, and controversial (he had converted to Catholicism).

Grave gifts left by visitors are remembrances and reverse souvenirs. I remember you, i made this visit to you, here is a memento i leave behind.

To the right of the white cap is a small ball with the writing, "Thanks Ray". Another ball has "Help" and the members of a ball team. Some come as pilgrims to ask for intervention, or to acknowledge intervention.

Mother's Day Concert

All Saints/All Souls

The above is a foto from a cemetery in Lithuania on All Saints. This was borrowed from a Filipino page in English. They had remarked something like "they decorate as we do". Over these days, the Catholic world does visit graveyards, and even some countries that once were Catholic do the same. Some bring flowers, some bring candles. Some do it on the weekend, some on November 1st, some on the 2nd.

But, in the United States, even in a large Catholic cemetery, the only color visiting is the changing of the leaves.

Sunday afternoon and the living creatures were mostly wild. I did not see a handful of people, and i was a part of a party of two.

urban graveyard

near Prospect

graves of the Union dead

what you can see from Lake View

Now, at this time of year (as i have done before) many people travel to Lake View Cemetery to photograph Daffodil Hill.

A few feet away is Jeptha Wade's monument. He was the cemetery's first president and gave land to the city for a park, which now has the Art Museum. On this hill one can see the lake, hence the name 'Lake View'. There, below is an electrical generating plant.

  and this vantage of  'the Angel'

Merlin

 merlin, pigeon hawk

in front of this cross, the bird was visible

Merlin is a falcon. In the Peterson Guide their winter range distribution in the eastern US is mostly coastal, and somewhat deeper from the Gulf Coast, with two isolated pockets. One pocket is extreme southwestern Pennsylvania, and the other extreme northeastern Ohio. Now, sometimes i have noticed that birds are rarer and have been noted to be in a particular spot, continue to be in that spot. But years pass, and a juvenile bird is a juvenile for a year (generally), and the same spot the same species is seen. It must be different individuals, for the bird is not eternal.

Now, i have read that merlins have been spotted, over the years, near a certain particular section of Cleveland Calvary Cemetery. I drove up to a section marker, and parked, stepped out, and saw Merlin on a tree. I took numerous photographs, birdy did not mind. While driving about beforehand, many blue jays were flitting about and cawing.

Merlin is not a bird legal to hunt. In the last few years, two separate harlequin ducks were spotted in parks. They were mentioned on the internet, and people came to view and shoot. Most came with cameras. Both ducks were killed. Duck hunting is legal. It takes a selfish son-of-a-bitch (either stupid, covetous, and/or mean) to take a trophy, or just kill a rare (even if just for the area) individual for shits and giggles. I do not expect this merlin to be shot. But now, i am not eager to pin point the spot; although if i had not read where the spot was, i do not think i would have seen the bird.