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.”

  • 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

  • Odds and Ends

    Pepper Maggot fly on underside of White Oak leaf… though their larval host plants are Solanum. Brand new Round Bullet Gall Wasp on White Oak. Neoboletus. Ex -cherry tree with slug trail. The UV light brings all the Asian Ladybugs to the party. Four of the ten or so that turned up recently. Problem is…

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  • Skimming

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    Skimming

  • Abstract

    Bill of a Great Black-backed Gull. The thing being scavenged was fairly abstract, too.

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    Abstract

  • Raptor Wednesday

    Damn, this was sad to see. A female American Kestrel dead by the side of the road in Green-Wood. I can’t tell if this cere is yellow enough for an adult or one of the youngsters. Most of the fledglings don’t make their first birthday, but if they do their chances are better and better……

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  • Tern Tern Tern

    High dive and catch! Breakfast seems to be a young flounder.

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    Tern Tern Tern

  • Mammal (and Others) Monday

    Dual excavations: a Cicada -killer Wasp nest on the left flank of this Groundhog den entrance. While photographing the wasp, I noticed: Another wasp. Steel-blue Cricket-hunter, which are known to nest in the vicinity of Cicada-killer wasps. Trying to get a good image of this one, movement at the corner of my eye revealed: A…

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    Mammal (and Others) Monday

  • Beetles

    Spined Oak Borer. Look at those antennae! Phaleria testacea digging for cover after I turned over very dead fish on the beach. These remains also had a passel of larvae of a Dermestes skin beetle working away. False Mealworm. Flat-faced Longhorn of some kind. Another longhorn: Sternidius genus (?) Stenelmis genus. Norther Sap Beetle. Red-Shouldered…

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    Beetles