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.”

  • Monarch Monday

    I keep thinking I’ve seen my last of the season when I see another… or in the case of October 21st, two. (Though only one made it to the camera that day in Green-Wood.) Then two more on October 28 at Bush Terminal. Then one more, October 30th, in Prospect Park.

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  • Northern Parula

    Typically a bird of the upper canopy, this Setophaga americana was foraging at eye-level in a hornbeam/Carpinus.

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    Northern Parula

  • Barks

    Zelkova Elm/Zelkova serrata in the rain. Dutch Elm/Ulmus x hollandica dry as a bone.

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  • Last Minute Costume Ideas

    Late October insect sightings may inspire you… A bit conceptual, this last one: gall wasps.

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    Last Minute Costume Ideas

  • Flickering

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    Flickering

  • Raptor Wednesday

    Sharp-shinned Hawk hunting lunch on the wing. American Kestrel eyeballing lunch on the ground. Merlin on the airborne hunt for lunch. Bloody talons, swollen crop: Cooper’s Hawk digesting lunch.

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    Raptor Wednesday

  • Corvids

    Raven on the antenna. Crow, too. Two crows. (And as Newark is in the distance, several planes.)

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    Corvids

  • Monarch Monday

    Look! Up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane… …it’s a Monarch. October 18th.

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    Monarch Monday

  • Birds in Blue

    Blue Jay reading the Riot Act to a male American Kestrel with a lizard. Second-string: Northern Mockingbird on the lower right.

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    Birds in Blue

  • Water Treaders

    Mulsant’s Water Treaders/Mesavellia mulsanti, one of the small semiaquatic bugs. These were on a rock in a pond.

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    Water Treaders