February 2012
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Three Heart-Shaped Leaves
Catalpa:The tree with the foot-long seed pods. Both the Northern Catalpa, C. speciosa, and the Southern Catalpa, C. bignonioides, grow in our region. The ones in Brooklyn Bridge Park may be some kind of cultivar or hybrid. Eastern cottonwoods, Populus deltoides, growing wild in the as yet uncompleted part of the park.Note here the flat…
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Feeders
Approaching the bird feeders in Prospect Park, I heard several Blue Jays screeching. The feeders themselves were completely abandoned, which is a sure sign of something going on, although there were Downy Woodpeckers, House Finches, Red-winged Blackbirds, and Mourning Doves all around in the trees. The male Red-wings are generally one of the earliest birds…
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Short Note on Winter Birding
The New York City region is, for some birds, “the south” they migrated to in winter. Open fresh water and sheltered salt water bodies attract ducks like Pintails, Wigeons, Gadwells, Canvasbacks, Red-heads, Scaups, Mergansers, Buffleheads, Shovellers, Teals, Long-tailed, and Scoters. The Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in the late afternoon is home to an amazing display…
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“How many of us, and how often, think of the fact that we live our time on a planet, within that planet’s time? What good is it to be alive on Earth and never come to know at least the place where one lives? We don’t even try to know it with our senses, much…
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Floyd Bennett Under Threat Again
Staten Island’s reactionary GOP (I know, that’s redundant) Representative Michael Grimm has introduced a bill in Congress to authorize the Interior Department to, according to the Jamaica Bay Research & Management Information Network: “(1) issue permits to allow the planning, construction, operation, and maintenance of natural gas pipeline facilities in the Gateway National Recreation Area…
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Field Trip: Croton Point
Croton Point Park is an hour north of the city by train ($18 roundtrip, off-peak). The park itself is just to the west of the Croton-Harmon train station – which inspired this line I donate to Country music gratis, “my heart’s as empty as a commuter parking lot on Sunday” — across a bridge spanning…
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Red Hook Saunter
Red Hook is the name of the eastern-most town in St. Thomas, USVI, but I’m back home in Brooklyn now, where Red Hook is a neighborhood.Long a working-class dock-side neighborhood, it’s relatively tree-less compared to Brownstone Brooklyn. The City’s Million Trees program is trying to change that (although who cares for the trees once planted…
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Ever green at JBWR
Transitioning away from my posts on the trip to St. John, what could more appropriate than Yucca, Yucca filamentosa, or Adam’s Needle? It looks like it belongs down there in the tropics. In fact, it grows up here at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. Baring a patch or two of grass and some pines, this plant…
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Februarius Mirabilis
Are you old enough to remember when winter used to be winter, damn it, and spring, spring? On the way to Prospect Park today, the second day of February, I saw the flowering quince on Congress St. in bloom:And then, in a tree pit in Windsor Terrace, some bulbs were pushing up into the light:In…
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Chiton
Even though we have at least one species of chiton, or coat-of-mail shell, in our northeastern waters, I’ve never come across one. The eight plates, or valves, that make up the shell usually break apart and scatter to the waves. This one was actually in a pile of shells placed as decoration in the villa…
Backyard and Beyond 