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.”

May 2013

  • Dragonfly Pond Watch

    This morning I joined Brooklyn Bridge Park staffers and volunteers for an orientation about the Dragonfly Pond Watch they are participating in this season. As part of the Migratory Dragonfly Partnership, the Watch is gathering data about five of the sixteen known migratory dragonfly species in North America: Common Green Darner (Anax junius) Black Saddlebags…

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  • Life Along The Delaware Bay

    I didn’t make it to the beach to witness the annual rites of spring of the Horseshoe Crabs (Limulus polyphemus). But I did manage a virtual trip with this beautiful book. Life Along The Delaware: Cape May, Gateway to a Million Shorebirds by Niles, Burger, and Dey, with photography by van de Kam, was published…

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  • Central Park Entire

    I was given a copy of Ken Chaya and Edward S. Barnard’s Central Park Entire: The Definitive Illustrated Folding May for my birthday, and part of the gift included a card for a tour with Chaya. I finally cashed in this past weekend. But first, the map. Sheer madness! But of a glorious kind. There…

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  • Roses, roses, everywhere

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  • Nymph, in thy orisons

    On the left, the Nnmphal husk of the Dog Day or Annual Cicada (Tibicen sp.), and on the right, the Periodic, 17-Year Cicada (Magicicada sp.). The Dog Day husk is from last August, if not the one before that, but its toes are still quite sharp. They don’t cut the skin, but they sure do…

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  • Magicicadas

    Seventeen years later, the genus Magicicada cicadas have emerged for the brief but glorious finale to their lives. Staten Island is the local epicenter for Brood II. Yesterday, Chris the Flatbush Gardener and I went in search of them, following an article in the Times that sent us to Clove Lakes Park. We scouted the…

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  • “Mortimer!”

    A brand new Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) displays gray plumage and bottomless appetite. Right now, these recently fledged birds are hopping after their parents on the ground, demanding food. It’s early enough in the year that this bird’s parents could certainly have another brood, if not two more. This is one of the reasons this Eurasian-origin…

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  • Columbine

    Aquilegia canadensis.

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  • Bugs and Blooms, Finally!

    Aphids feasting on plant juices, a 14-spotted lady beetle (Propylea quatuordecimpunctata) and syrphid fly larva (h/t for the ID on this one, Lost Ladybug Project) feeding on aphids.

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  • Misc. May

    These flowering cherry blossoms and the ones below were on the same tree. There was a single branch of the flowers (below) amid all the skirty pink ones:

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