Today was hot, with blue sky and puffy white clouds. The spikey blossoms on the chestnut tree have opened a creamy white. I was happy to see Arlen and Meta by the fountain, so I could move on to the shade of my maple by the path. Throughout my 90 minute set, it dropped its little helicopter seeds.

But the big news at my location was the sighting of a bay-breasted warbler in a nearby birch. Birders were there when I arrived, and just kept coming with their cameras equipped with close-up lenses as long as your arm. Tight-beaked bunch, these birders. When I asked what they were looking at they ignored me, or answered coyly, “Birds.” Any particular bird? “Just birds.” Finally, one guy clued me in to the bay-breasted warbler. “What’s really unusual’s how low in the tree it is, and it’s so cooperative.”

Before long a middle-aged couple from Brazil stopped to hula. “How much?” the man asked, gesturing toward my CDs. For $10, he had to have one.

Later, a couple from England stopped to chat, a 50-something man and a much younger, exotic-looking woman. He loved my act, said if he went home to London tonight it would have been worth the trip. I think he was showing off for his girlfriend, naming various places he’d been to in the city over the last 30 years, for the best of this or that, then calling on me for confirmation: “Am I right?” Finally he came right out with it. Taking in the lovely day with outstretched arms, he said, “You may well be the luckiest man in New York,” then, taking up the young woman’s hand, “next to me.”

Two CDs sold, I walked out of the park with $22.65. The birders were still at it.