September 2010
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Chrysalis
The remains of a pupa, or chrysalis. This was, I think, the temporary home of a specimen of a Monarch, Danaus plexippus, as it underwent metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly. The caterpillars themselves were much in evidence here in Brooklyn Bridge Park at the end of August, gobbling up milkweed. Curiously, the milkweeds contains noxious…
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Fall birding
Northern parula, Parula americana, a species typically found at the top of trees. But this south-bound migrant was hungry, and was flitting around at eye-level in Prospect Park before it descended to wrangle with a caterpillar on the ground. An unleashed dog chased it away. The green mantle on the back is an excellent field…
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Death on the rocks
The coast of Cape Ann, Massachusetts: at Pigeon Cove earlier this month, I came across a dead juvenile northern gannet on the rocks. There was a fishing lure lodged in the bird’s mouth. Now, this is only circumstantial evidence for the cause of death, but it’s pretty damn strong circumstantial evidence. Northern gannets, Morus bassanus,…
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Fieldnotes: Muskrats
If you build it, they will come. Is this your typical muskrat habitat? On Sunday, looking for more caterpillars and exuviae in Brooklyn Bridge Park, we ran into a couple of muskrats, Ondatra zibethicus, munching away on the new plantings. Yes, we were surprised. One of the animals was a youngster, and some comments found…
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Buckeye
A Common buckeye, Junonia coenia, working the aster in Prospect Park.
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Hymenoptera
We went into Prospect Park on Saturday with a group from the Bee Watchers study. John Ascher of the American Museum of Natural History, whose fingers are visible below, led the expedition — which actually didn’t go very far since there were plenty of plants in bloom near the Boat House, where we began. There…
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Pin Oak Stripped
This fine old pin oak on Washington Ave. in Clinton Hill was shock-shorn by the tornado and/or micro burst event of Thursday evening. The bole, or trunk, seems to have been well anchored, but all the limbs and branches were, shall we say, de-tasseled. For several hours, in fact, the limbs blocked the street. By…
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Frogs
Some frogs from a recent trip to the Massachusetts/New Hampshire border: In a swimming pool. The clarity of the water allowed us to watch this green frog swim: it’s all in the meaty back legs, the forelimbs streamlined against the body. Two more green frogs in a small man-made pond. Up to five frogs have…
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Monarchs
A passel of monarch butterfly caterpillars, Danaus plexippus, were denuding some milkweed around the waterworks at the Brooklyn Bridge Park recently. The monarch is probably our most familiar butterfly. The generation we see here may be the one that, come winged adulthood, makes the epic long march of a flight towards the cool cloud forests…
Backyard and Beyond 