March 2012
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DHB, FBF
Yesterday, we took a walk along Dead Horse Bay and the North 40 Trail at nearby Floyd Bennett Field. Before we knew it, we’d been outside for more than six glorious hours.This is a transitional time, with both winter and spring bird species finding themselves rubbing shoulders, so to speak. The large raft of Greater…
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Winter: What is it good for?
Tomorrow is the last day of winter, a measure now more astronomical than seasonal. What did we miss this year? Snow, and the recharging of our water supplies with the spring thaw. Gateway NRA spent the last couple of months sending out warnings about the fire hazard created by zero snow cover, strong coastal winds,…
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Field Trip: Squam Swamp
This is a Nantucket Conservation Foundation property of 294 acres on the northeastern end of the island. The Foundation, which keeps a substantial portion of the island free of the monstrous SUV-scaled houses now built there, has produced an excellent paper interpretive guide to the mile-long trail. Hardwood forests are rare on Nantucket now, but…
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Hellebores-a-poppin’
6th Street, Park Slope. Genus Helleborus was named after the Greek words for “killing” and “food,” since members of the family are often toxic. Also known as Lenten Rose. Much hybridized, popular as a very early bloomer. Another batch on Sidney Place, the Block of Perpetual Renovation, in Brooklyn Heights. The native wildflower False Hellebore,…
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Bottle-brush
This Eastern Redcedar has mostly been taken over by a vine, possibly poison ivy, but I wasn’t going to get that close to find out.
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Blood Memory
George Boorujy’s solo show Blood Memory opens today at P.P.O.W. Gallery, 535 West 22nd Street, 3rd Floor NY NY (Inner Borough). My earlier post about George.
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Skene Amidst the Daffodils
This is Alexander Johnston Chalmers Skene looking out over the early daffodils in Grand Army Plaza. I assumed that Skene might possibly be the only gynecologist ever memorialized with a statue, but I would be wrong, as you’ll see in that informative Parks Department link: Central Park has J. Marion Simms, the, ahem, “father of…
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Staten Island’s Frog
We interrupt this blog to remind you that while I sometimes range far and wide (Iceland, New Mexico, Nantucket, etc.) my heart remains right here in the great outdoors of the urban conglomeration that is New York City. Nature, as I like to say almost daily, is all around us, even in the city. Case…
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Teeth and Nails
The winter beach is often the last resting place of fish, fowl, and mammal. On my last walk along the north shore of Nantucket, I found a dead Harbor seal (Phoca vitulina). Such close-up encounters, albeit a bit queasy, can offer rare details. For instance, note the the animal’s human-scale teeth: Also, and this was…
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Another cache
Yesterday, we saw a bird’s nest that had been reused as a cache for seeds. Here’s another little hideaway, which was also probably stocked in the fall by one of the several species of mice that inhabit our noctural woodlands. Look inside.
Backyard and Beyond 