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.”

March 2010

  • Insects as outlaws

    I went to hear Hugh Raffles read from and talk about his new book, Insectopedia, yesterday. The book is about the entangled intersection between humans and insects, and the profound ambiguity of that intersection (from our perspective). I haven’t read it yet. But I was really struck by something he said. He mentioned an Elias…

    mthew

  • In the Back 40: Mummified Millipede

    I found this in the Back 40 (inches) last week. It’s probably a leftover from last year. The Back 40, to bring you up to speed, is my small, fenced & walled concrete slab of backyard. Here, near the west coast of Brooklyn, USA, I get what I think is a fair (and wondrous) amount…

    mthew

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  • Quince blooming in the rain

    The local quince tree, a cultivar of Cydonia oblonga. This is not your average NYC street tree; it’s not even on the official street tree list. But there you go. It’s here, it’s blooming, and it usually fruits — smaller pomes than you see in the supermarket. Actually, you probably don’t see quince in the…

    mthew

  • Interior insect

    I found this insect working its way up the bathroom wall Sunday while I was flossing. I love the sharp triangular shape of the wings. If anybody knows what it is, or where it fits among the hexapoda, let me know. It was less than a quarter-inch long, which made for challenging photography, and a…

    mthew

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  • Scolopax minor

    It was an unusually cold Saturday night, but damn it, it was spring, and the timberdoodles were in town. We went out to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge to listen for them. The American woodcock, Scolopax minor, as it is more formally known, is a shorebird that isn’t. It is related to the sandpipers, and looks…

    mthew

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  • Living with wildlife

    I found this fine website on living with urban wildlife set up by Portland OR’s Audubon. It’s on the other coast, so they have some different species, but the ideas are the same. The border between nature and city has always been permeable, and as cities expand the border grows even less sure. It behooves…

    mthew

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  • In the archives

    Foot- and end- notes are like the underbrush: it’s crowded down there, and you have to wade through a mess of grass or leaves to find something juicy.  I was on the trail of a book recently, sent there I do not remember why, and found a copy at the NYPL. This was William Beebe’s…

    mthew

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  • Field Notes: In Prospect (plus haiku)

    Willow, weep. Grackle, advance. Cocoon, open…. This is somewhat similar to the one I saw last week, but attached to a lamp post instead of suspended from a twig. Also, it’s darker. This one is just as big, though, just over an inch long, half or more wide. A big fat moth? What do you…

    mthew

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  • Field Notes: Turtle ID help requested

    Most of the turtles in our local fresh waters are eastern red eared sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans). I posted a picture of two of them last week in Green-Wood; note the distinctive red stripe behind the eye; note also that rough carapace. This is an invasive species, now pretty naturalized, that was, and I suppose…

    mthew

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  • Field Notes: JBWR Beetles UPDATED

    Photographs by N. Arnzen. There are something like 350,000 described species of beetles, order Coleoptera, and presumably many more that are not described. I once read that there are more species of beetles than all other species of animals combined, which may not be right, but it does give you some sense of their dominance…

    mthew

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