April 2012
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The Elusive Baby Pigeon
Question: how come you never see a baby pigeon? Answer: you’re not looking hard enough. Actually, the answer might best be approached with another question: how many baby birds does anybody ever see? Ducklings, sure, but ducks are precocial, meaning they are ready to roll (and swim and follow their parents) pretty much as soon…
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Oculus
Near sundown on Friday: the view through a friend’s 4th floor apartment on Prospect Park West.
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Earth Day
Here at Backyard and Beyond, we celebrate our planet and its life, and its life-giving life, every day.So consider the exhortation on the bridge of the Torm Thames, a chemical tanker tied up at the end of Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn last month, right around the corner from the Back 40. Sure, it’s a piece…
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Polygonia demystified
Eastern Comma butterfly (Polygonia comma). I found this photo in my archives and thought I would compare it to this photo of a Question Mark butterfly (P. interrogationis) I took the other day:These butterflies’ common names come from the small silver marks on the underside of their hindwings (the lower of the pair), which look…
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Listening and Seeing Tours
I will be leading two Listening Tours this spring: The first is Sunday, April 29th for Proteus Gowanus. The second is Saturday, May 12, for NYC Wildflower Week/Nature Block Party. (Register here.) Both tours start at 6 a.m. at the Grand Army Plaza entrance to Prospect Park. Yes, you read that right: 6:00 a.m. sharp.…
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Butterflies, Butterfly-Shaped
American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis). Very similar to the Painted Lady (V. cardui), which, like the Monarch (Danaus plexippus), is migratory. Saw my first Monarch as well (last year I noted my first at the end of June); the milkweeds, which Monarchs are so associated with, were only three-four inches out of the ground. I’m using…
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Now Blooming, Now Flying
In Prospect Park this morning:Wild Geranium, a.k.a. Spotted Cranesbill (Geranium maculatum).Question Mark butterfly (Polygonia interrogationis), as punctual a name as the very, very similar Eastern Comma (Polygonia comma): (picture from my archives)– so named because of small silvery marks on their underside of their hindwings, unseen while wings are spread.Wild Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis). Red Admiral…
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Elm Fruit
American Elm (Ulmus americana). Typically given their druthers, Amerian Elm will take the classic vase shape that made it such a popular park tree before Dutch Elm Disease (a beetle-vectored fungus) killed off so many of them. There are still mighty elms to be seen, though. Prospect Park’s most magnificent example, on the Long Meadow,…
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Wall of Nests
The 1869 Beard & Robinson Stores, stretching down to the end of Van Brunt Street. This stone wall on its southern end looks fairly smooth from afar, but is in fact riddled with lots of short ledges and crannies. Numerous House Sparrows are nesting here like troglodytes. There were a good number of Starlings around,…
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