Backyard and Beyond

I Like Lichens

mthew — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:20:13 +0000

It being such a mizzling day, I needed some color. Luckily, this kind of weather brings out the vibrancy of the lichens on our street trees.Air pollution is generally bad news for lichens, as is ozone depletion. Walking through City Hall Park in Manhattan just before I took these shots on Union Street in Brooklyn, I noticed extremely little lichen on the mature trees in the Inner Borough. Brooklyn seems to have a more lichen-friendly atmosphere, although not for lack of cars.As you may remember from school science, lichen is a composite organism in which a fungus and an alga or a bacterium work together symbiotically. Except for the atmospheric issues, lichen can be found in some of the harshest environments on the planet.

(The actual near-fluorescence of this lichen on dark wet bark is hard to capture. In the last shot, I used the flash.)

Sweetgum Fruit

mthew — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:32:11 +0000

The spiky, dried fruits of the Sweetgum tree, Liquidamber styraciflua, often persist on the tree through winter. A strong wind can bring them down to the sidewalk, where the jagged orbs look otherworldly. Each fruit is composed of 40-60 capsules, which are now long since emptied of their seeds. A native tree, and a regular on our sidewalks and parks, the species is more common in the South. Its star-shaped leaves are quite distinctive and can be very colorful — yellow, orange, red, maroon — in the fall.

A Raft of Ducks

mthew — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:35:21 +0000

In Dead Horse Bay, thousands of Great Scaup, Aythya marila, are rafting together.

Western Lights

mthew — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 23:41:05 +0000

The sun sets over New York Harbor, New Jersey, and the great darkening mass of the Republic. Photo from Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Don’t Dump Your Turtle

mthew — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 12:27:16 +0000

One of the search phrases that’s led people to this blog more than once is about “releasing pet turtles in Prospect Park.” People want to know if it’s OK to do so. The answer is: no, it isn’t, and you shouldn’t ~ which is what I hope they learned from the internet.

But, considering that I counted over seventy Red-eared Sliders in the Lullwater in November, the practice certainly continues. The Japanese Pond in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is another dumping zone for Brooklyn pet-owners.The Red-eared Slider is the common pet trade turtle, often sold in itty-bitty, evidently irresistible (and, if under 4″, plainly illegal) form. But of course, if the animal is lucky — although plenty of them die young — it grows bigger and bigger and bigger. A female can get to be the size of a large dinner plate, the males nearly that big. A native of the southeastern U.S., these sliders have become invasive in our region through releases from people who didn’t realize how big they could get, could no longer afford the increasing care costs (a very large tank is necessary for a plate-sized turtle), got bored with it, or otherwise outgrow it themselves (children are obviously cute-baited by the trade). Besides out-competing native species like the Painted Turtle, every release is a potential biological hazard, since it could introduce disease(s) to local turtle populations.

You are doing no good to the animal or the habitat by releasing it. Instead, search out adoption agencies like Turtle Rescue of Long Island. The mistake was the initial acquisition, so hopefully now, in making emends, you’ll be an evangelist for NOT BUYING TURTLES AS PETS. Let wild animals be.

I’ve seen them for sale on the sidewalk, and not only in Chinatowns. Brisk business was being gone right by Brooklyn Borough Hall not so long ago (no doubt the hucksters made a contribution to the Borough President’s “favorite charity,” wink, wink). Some years ago, I met some people who found a baby turtle in their table centerpiece at a wedding reception (every table had one, it was part of the design; the florist should have been flogged).

If you see something related to wildlife that you think is illegal, for instance the sale of any reptile or amphibian species native to New York State, or any turtles under 4″ being sold on the street, you can call the state’s hot line: 1-800-847-7332 to report it. I wish I’d known this when I saw those schmucks selling them on Court Street.

Possessing any one of the dozen species of native turtles in New York State is illegal.

Check out the NY Turtle and Tortoise Society for additional news, views, etc.

All my turtle posts are here: painted, snappers, diamondbacks, etc., in the wild, where they belong.

Diamondback Terrapin female, Jamaica Bay

Coot

mthew — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:59:08 +0000

The American Coot, dwarfed by a juvenile Mute Swan in both perspective and actuality, is a Prospect Park regular, but never in very large numbers. There were several on the Lake last week, and a surprising dozen plus at the Boat House. Although duck-like, Coots (Fulica americana) are actually Gruiformes, or rails (I saw their cousins the Common Gallinule in St. John). The most notable distinction, besides the very un-duck-like bill, is that they don’t have webbed feet. Their toes are lobed, which helps them move through the water. And they do come ashore, so you can see these interesting toes.

Three Heart-Shaped Leaves

mthew — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:14:10 +0000

Catalpa:The tree with the foot-long seed pods. Both the Northern Catalpa, C. speciosa, and the Southern Catalpa, C. bignonioides, grow in our region. The ones in Brooklyn Bridge Park may be some kind of cultivar or hybrid.
Eastern cottonwoods, Populus deltoides, growing wild in the as yet uncompleted part of the park.Note here the flat leafstalk and the warty glands at base of leaf.
Our old friend Paulownia, the tree that grows anywhere, and when it does, its early-growth leaves are enormous. My boot here is for scale, and not intended in any way to suggest trampled hearts on this day of all days, when, instead of buying some generic crap, or roses picked by brutalized workers on pesticide-pounded factory farms, you make something with your own two hands for your dearest leaf-person(s).

Feeders

mthew — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:41:19 +0000

Approaching the bird feeders in Prospect Park, I heard several Blue Jays screeching. The feeders themselves were completely abandoned, which is a sure sign of something going on, although there were Downy Woodpeckers, House Finches, Red-winged Blackbirds, and Mourning Doves all around in the trees. The male Red-wings are generally one of the earliest birds to return north in the spring, but some will stick around through a mild winter like this one. They generally don’t vocalize this early, but these boys were wound up. They all knew what the Blue Jays knew. A Cooper’s hawk, Accipiter cooperii, was nearby, raptor-eyeing the scene. Cooper’s Hawks, which are similar looking to the smaller Sharp-shinned Hawks, Accipiter striatus, are Accipiters, or woodland hawks, built to maneuver through forests swiftly. They have long stripped tails, relatively short, rounded wings (as compared to the long pointy ones of falcons and the large, broad wings of soaring hawks, or Buteos, like the commonly seen Red-tailed Hawk). Their usual prey is other birds, which they take by surprise, suggesting this was not this particular bird’s hour. A mature bird, it had its post-juvenile characteristic red eyes and horizontal russet stripping across the chest. There is another North American Accipiter, the Northern Goshawk, which is an extremely rare bird in the city, although there was a juvenile in Prospect Park a few years ago.

While watching this Cooper, and the active, vocal song birds in the area (though they totally boycotted the feeders), I saw a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk make a pass over the feeders, which also attract squirrels. This squirrel, representative of what is normally a pretty vivacious species, hunched very, very still, trying to blend into the branch. The Red-tailed hawk landed below and back from the Cooper’s, which made the Cooper’s give it neck-twisting looking-over, but otherwise they seemed to ignore each other.I know, I know… it look a lot of observation to be able to get a bit of a handle on identifying the raptors (for instance, there are a dozen species of raptors on the Prospect Park bird checklist), who are often just a fast blur. But the more you look, the more you’ll see. Deep breath. Patience. Awfully helpful is the richly illustrated, but too heavy for the field. Wheeler’s Raptors of Eastern North America.

For the last few winters, I’ve been noticing Cooper’s in my part of Brooklyn, Cobble Hill-Carroll Gardens. Last week I also saw one fly over the bus I was on going up 5th Avenue in Park Slope. Where there are bird feeders, there are song birds, and where there are groupings of songbirds there will be raptors.

Short Note on Winter Birding

mthew — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 12:45:56 +0000

The New York City region is, for some birds, “the south” they migrated to in winter. Open fresh water and sheltered salt water bodies attract ducks like Pintails, Wigeons, Gadwells, Canvasbacks, Red-heads, Scaups, Mergansers, Buffleheads, Shovellers, Teals, Long-tailed, and Scoters. The Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in the late afternoon is home to an amazing display of Snow Geese returning to the shelter of the ponds after a day of foraging elsewhere. Long skeins of the white, black-wing-tipped birds fly out of and into the setting sun. It is an amazing sight, and it’s accessible by public transportation. North Atlantic pelagic species, those birds that spend the majority of their lives at sea, are more likely to be seen close to shore this time of year. Last week, two Razorbills were sighted from the Coney Island Boardwalk. A few Snowy Owls, in this major irruptive year, have been seen along the city’s shoreline. Loons, who nest in fresh water, can now be found off-shore. On solidly dry ground, a White-Winged Crossbill was spotted briefly in Prospect Park last week; this northern finch is an infrequent visitor to our city.

Cycles, the nature of nature blogging: a year ago I posted this about the thousands of Greater Scaup in Gravesend Bay.
Northern Shovelers, Anas clypeata, with the males in full breeding plumage. Called “shovelers” because of their unusually long bills, which they use to strain food from the water. Here, on the Prospect Park Lake, they’re clustering in a tight scrum and moving around in circles to stir up plankton, seeds, etc.

mthew — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:37:30 +0000

“How many of us, and how often, think of the fact that we live our time on a planet, within that planet’s time? What good is it to be alive on Earth and never come to know at least the place where one lives? We don’t even try to know it with our senses, much less with our minds and spirits. How many human feet in the industrialized world know anything more than floors, pavement, lawn, or manicured sandy beach in a lifetime? We live on Earth without walking on it. What do we touch with our hands? So many human eyes and ears see only the human-constructed landscape, hear only human sounds. Wild hills and swamps are looked at casually, if at all, viewed as little more than a backdrop for human dramas. So many voices, so many languages beyond human tongues, are never listened to. We are in fact overwhelmingly out of our senses. Our eyes are open for such a brief time, our appearance on Earth betwwen two unfathomable sleeps. Are we to sleepwalk through it?” David M. Carroll, Following the Water: A Hydromancer’s Notebook.

“Wetlandscape” explorer Carroll, whose books are a must, spots a hatchling wood turtle on a hot August day. It is barely an inch long, and has only just emerged from its egg underground, where it was laid more than 70 days previously. He knows the hatchling is marching now towards water, something it has never tasted or seen before, and he is curious to see if it will drink the water he gives it. The little turtle sticks its head in the water and drinks for 21 long minutes.