Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

  • When Terns Attack

    This guy working on something on a floating dock at Brooklyn Bridge Park was not being appreciated by a local Common Tern. You tell ’em! Long before I was into birds I was set upon by a host of either Common or Forster’s Terns on a beach on Nantucket during breeding season. Tern, duck! Duck,…

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    When Terns Attack

  • Milksnake Monday

    Near the end of our walk in Rockefeller State Park Preserve, an Eastern Milkshake on the edge of the path, which is an old road, scooted into the shrubbery as we came upon it. You can just the animal’s tail end in the center of the photo above. We thought that that would be the…

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    Milksnake Monday

  • Royal Terns

    Migrants passing throughnin non-breeding plumage. Up to three dozen, a goodly number hereabouts, where fishing, feeding young, grooming, and loafing at Plumb Beach last weekend. A couple of these were banded, but were too far away for me to read/report.

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    Royal Terns

  • Checking in With the Horseshoes

    The shed exoskeleton of an Atlantic Horseshoe Crab. And another, rather larger one. To grow, these arthropods must shed to expand. Yet another, along with a darker corpse. Another dead one. This one is tagged. I reported it to the USFWS, but don’t know if anybody is home there after the destruction wrote by the…

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    Checking in With the Horseshoes

  • Rockefeller State Park Preserve

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    Rockefeller State Park Preserve

  • A New One

    Fluttering at the dune end of Plumb Beach recently… An adult antlion, the first I’ve seen in NYC. This is a female Brchynemurus abdominalis. (Which makes it the first species of antlion I’ve identified.) This one is a male. I presume of the same species, for he was nearby.

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    A New One

  • Raptor Wednesday

    Male Kestrel snacking on dragonfly. A female. Both observed from apartment. Osprey sightings from Plumb Beach. Red-tailed. If I didn’t see the tail, I’d say this was a juvenile with that chest plumage, but the tail is one-year-old or older red. Birds, bugs, & galls! I’ll be leading bird, bug, and gall walks in Green-Wood…

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    Raptor Wednesday

  • Chimney Swifts

    Chimney Swifts keep flying after sunset, but not for long. This one story building is a printing shop now, but clearly used to be something else. The chimney, unused in summer, has long been a roosting spot for some of our local swifts. When the birds call it a day, they plunge down into the…

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  • Mushroom Hosting Monday

    Some big Berkeley’s Polypore mushrooms around Willow Oaks in Green-Wood. If you look closely… they are practically swarming with Two-spotted Diaperis beetles, who mate and lay their eggs on the mushrooms. The smaller, less numerous Dacne picta is doing the same. Meanwhile, this ichneumon wasp was crawling all over one of the ‘shrooms. Was she…

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    Mushroom Hosting Monday

  • Beach Combing

    A well picked over skate. Snail Fur, a colonial marine hydroid on snail shell used by hermit crab. A closer look… And here’s some on another hermit crab shell. Long-claw Hermit/Pagurus longicarpus using an Eastern Mudsnail shell. Some kind of segmented worm with its own sand tube. Speaking of worms, the same Semi-palmated Plover scarfs…

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    Beach Combing