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.”

  • Green Herons

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    Green Herons

  • Oriole Nest, Continued

    Two days after first noticing this Baltimore Oriole weaving her nest, I find she now has a hammock-like structure. Two days after that, it looks complete, the sack ready for eggs.

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  • Raptor Wednesday

    Nest 2 male just after taking a morning bath. There should be nestlings by now in the nest across the street from this perch. The same day, I ran into a Merlin. This is the first one I’ve ever seen in May. I wonder if this one is breeding locally? That would be news. Unlike…

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  • Weaver

    Baltimore Oriole gathering nesting material… … flying it to tree… … and beginning to weave her nest together.

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    Weaver

  • Inlandlubbers

    There were three Solitary Sandpipers on Dell Water recently. That’s a lot around here. Meanwhile, over at Sylvan Water: There was a solitary Spotted Sandpiper. And then, a day or two later, both Spotted and Solitary forging in the Dell Water murk.

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    Inlandlubbers

  • Another Fossil Hoard

    Rocks on the western edges of Brooklyn were mostly piled there by people to harden the shore. These rocks are from elsewhere, upstate I believe. They aren’t the tumbled erratic deposits of the glaciers. And some of them are littered with the remains of ancient seas.

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  • Caterpillar

    There are a number of caterpillars that are camouflaged as twigs, and when disturbed will pose like so. This one was eating in the low-hanging branches of a Pin Oak. This has been identified as a Toothed Phigalia Moth/Phigalia denticulata. I await confirmation of that. Today’s 10:30 Bugging Out in Green-Wood still has spaces (until…

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    Caterpillar

  • Bugging Out

    Methodically devouring their greens, two larval sawflies demolish a Quaking Aspen/Populus tremuloides leaf. I’m not sure which species these are; they seem to be the second sawfly species I’ve seen feasting on these aspens. The other species eats a half moon from the leaf and then takes shelter in a turned over edge of leaf.…

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    Bugging Out

  • De-barked

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    De-barked

  • Raptor Wednesday

    I was eating a sandwich standing up by the kitchen window when suddenly a young Bald Eagle flew into my view followed by a crow. They were closer than the building across the street, right over 6th Avenue and at my 4th floor eye-level! Hurrying to clean my hand and grab my camera, I got…

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    Raptor Wednesday