Backyard and Beyond

Every winter I think I’m not going to see a Hairy Woodpecker. Here’s a recent male (above) in Prospect Park.

And here is a female in Green-Wood.

Here’s a male Downy Woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) for comparison. These are more frequently seen here, so I always have to do a double-take to make sure I know what’s what. Here’s a handy guide to telling them apart. I usually look to the bill length.

But here’s a view of of the distinctive black spotting on the outer tail feathers of the Downy. No spots on the white on the Hairy.

A couple of male Northern Cardinals popping the viewer’s eyes on a foggy winter day.

This Wilson Bulletin note has them in Bristol, PA, just northwest of Philly, in 1901. But by 1920, the species had withdrawn from the limits of its northern range, which was just about New York City. Then they started coming back. Ball (1964) cites the first recent Brooklyn breeding record as 1943 (Prospect Park). Ball continues: “the increase and spread of the Cardinal in the New York City region, as well as throughout much of the northeast, particularly since the mis-1940s, and more especially in the 1950s, has been positively phenomenal.” From further north: there were no nesting Cardinals in Cambridge, MA, until the 1960s, according to this study utilizing bird surveys starting in the 1860s.

I still maintain it’s remarkable that just yards from the raceway of the Belt Parkway, Purple Sandpipers rock-climb on the rip-rap bulkhead from Yellow Hook to Sheepshead Bay.

Is this Maine girt in rockweeds and wracked in barnacles? No, it’s the coast of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

From a five blocks away, you can see there is a disturbance in the raptor force, something atop St. Michael’s. From two blocks away, where this picture was taken, it’s Peregrine confirmation.

Getting closer. The most dangerous part of this mission–getting to where the low afternoon sun is behind you–is crossing the block that’s all gas station and car wash. The god of the car disdains sidewalks.

Of course, once you’re on the very block of this long-time perch, the steeple-topper towers above you.

From the park, a long avenue and a half away.

Staten Island’s wharf rats have met their match. A juvenile Swainson’s Hawk (Buteo swainsoni) was spotted Sunday on Front Street by the S.I. Railroad’s big car maintenance building. The bird was in the same area Monday, when I took these pictures.

Those long primaries! (They edge just past the tail.)

Swainson’s are a fairly common raptor west of the Mississippi. From there they typically migrate to Argentina for the non-breeding season. So this one is way off base. There have only been a handful of New York state sightings over the years.

(If you’re on ebird, you can scan the rare bird alerts to be updated, more or less, on the bird’s presence.)

A rising tide lifts all boats, but also covers over this seal rock off Staten Island. Good timing here…

An hour earlier, at the nadir of the tide.

There were a couple of these Atlantic Harbor Seals (Phoca vitulina) around.

A growth on a Tuliptree trunk.

With evidence of several others that have broken off.

Or, uh, been broken off, as in this case. I grabbed it and it snapped right off.

Meanwhile, on an oak.

What are these things? Burls of some kind? Root tissue?

On beech. Same type of growth or different?

I’ve written a lot about birds and ornithology for Jstor Daily over the years, and so have my co-workers. The editors compiled all these bird-stories this week. Enjoy!

Two days of very cold weather over Christmas weekend froze up Sylvan Water.

By Wednesday, a little patch was open.

To be continued… (FYI: temps this week reached towards 60F).