May 2014
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Adios, Texas
Talk about “road-side hawks”! A Swainson’s Hawk (Buteo swainsoni). Loooong wings. Didn’t look like there was anything on the road, yet the bird must have been attracted to something before oncoming traffic flushed it (we, of course, had already pulled off to the side of the road).Another roadie, the Harris’s Hawk (Parabuteo unicinctus), telcom-poll percher…
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Cairns
No rocky place should be left unhonored. The Hudson shore at Croton Point. A weathered piece of old brick, from the kilns that fed the metropolis down-river, contrasts nicely with a downed tree, so like rock itself.
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No Red-Tail?
Sometimes you don’t get a great view. Also, this Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) is one of last year’s fledglings, so it’s still too young to have the red, which is really russet- or brick-colored, tail. But those rough, white, V-like markings on the back are an excellent clue to the identification of this species, at…
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Ball Moss
Ball moss (Tillandsia recurvata) isn’t actually a moss; it’s a flowering plant. This particular example was found on the ground after it had flowered. This plant is in the same genus as the famous dripping Spanish Moss (and both are in the same family as the pineapple). These not-mosses are epiphytes, aerial plants that attach…
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Adolescent Pigeons
We’ve been following the rapid growth of two baby Rock pigeons (Columba livia) under a local bridge. Click here for the first half of the month. The picture above was taken on May 19th. Just a little of the yellowy-fuzz on their heads now. Wings look good and feathered. Won’t be long now….Well, maybe not…
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Fledgling
“Fledge” has an ancient sound in my ear. The OED records the word back to late Middle English with roots in Old English and Latin, corresponding to similar words in English’s cousins, Dutch and German, for flight. It means to acquire the feathers necessary for flight, and has been allegorized to youth, inexperience, and, in…
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More Nesting News
I know of two Green Heron (Butorides virescens) nests in the park, one at eye-level and one way up in the canopy.The sloppy-looking pile of sticks precariously thrown about up there seems to work for them. Someone said there were at least four of pair of breeding Green Herons in the park.Didn’t see any activity…
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Raptor Alignment
Aligned through the new Osprey nesting platform at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s ghost of Pier 4 is the 55 Water Street Peregrine scrape across the East River. It’s too late for Ospreys to nest here this season, but the falcons have three young (maybe four by now). You can spy on the falcons here; note, they…
Backyard and Beyond 