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.”

November 2013

  • Planet Earth is Blue

    And cloudwhite.

    mthew

  • Thanksgiving

    I give thanks to planet Earth. Couldn’t live without it. Coincidently, NASA scientists have announced the discovery of a new moon of Jupiter, Ipomoea. Oddly, initial reports suggest it’s mostly made out of sweet potato, with a gingersnap core.

    mthew

  • Solvitur Ambulando

    “And all the leaves on the trees are falling,” this time of year, some of them enormous. My friend and fellow nature blogger Melissa of Out Walking the Dog sent me a photo the other day of a very large face-covering leaf I thought might be American Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis). The very next day I…

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  • Primary Colors

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  • Ruddy

    A female Ruddy Duck (Oxyura jamaicensis). Preening here, and rather successfully keeping her usually upright tail, a helpful field mark for this small duck, submerged.

    mthew

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  • Where have all the Monarchs gone?

    Did you notice that there were fewer Monarch Butterflies this year? I only saw a few here and there. They were notable for their rarity. Others I know reported the same situation. The word spread. Of course, this was all anecdotal, as the publicists and lawyers, who one supposes have to feed their children with…

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  • The Surveyor

    Perched on an obelisk. Wind-ruffled.Unruffled by us.And the namesake of an adult Red-Tailed Hawk, Buteo jamaicensis. First year birds will not yet have red-colored tail feathers. But the tell-tale speckled V shape on the back (actually the wings) is another good field mark for the species. The same bird, or just as easily another, since…

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  • Colors

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  • Liquidambar

    I did a double-take over these. They are similar to the pods of the American Sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua):but smaller and with much longer points; these are evidently persistent styles. (The pods look rather Goth after they have opened up and dried out.) Also, the leaves are three-lobed: Our Sweetgum has five to seven lobes:So at…

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  • 1000 Urban Miles, Part I

    Or six and a half miles to start with… I walked down Clinton Street, still fairly leafy, with yellowing Ginkgo in particular still hanging on, but no female trees along this stretch; their tell-tale fruit, crushed upon the sidewalk, did stench up other sections of my route. The fig growing on a side street is…

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