May 2014
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NYC Wildflower Week
Is well underway. There are events until Sunday in all the boroughs. Some of the things you might see include the following, which are blooming now: Spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana).Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum). Celandine Poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum). And, in the hiding the light under the bushel department, the Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum). This lovely white flower grows…
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Wood Ducks
A birder named Ben mentioned he’d seen a Wood Duck with ducklings on the Upper Pool the day before, so we were on the lookout. A pair coasted on the water, but it was a single mom in the lily pads who emerged with seven ducklings (and, in fact, she gave the male of the…
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Mushroom Print
One of Lois Long’s lithographs for the collaborative work, Mushroom Book, she and John Cage created in 1972. It’s on display at the Horticultural Society of NY until Thursday. Cage was instrumental in re-starting the modern incarnation of New York Mycological Society. I was at “The Hort” to hear a lecture on using mushrooms for…
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International Bird Migration Day
Magnolia Warbler male (Dendroica magnolia). An upstate NY and further north nester. Just passing through Brooklyn now … It’s International Bird Migration Day, which was developed to educate people about the transnational lives of birds. Right now, billions of individual birds are moving from Central and South America to North America, flowing from southern hemisphere…
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Look Up, Look Down, Look Out!
Come down a little closer, Scarlet Tanager! The bright morning sun is making your tail shine. Uh, yeah, like that, Piranga olivacea, male of.Meanwhile, in the grass, a male Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus). These are far more common in farm and prairie country than here in Brooklyn. I only saw my first a few years ago,…
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Goatsuckers
The Caprimulgidae family of goatsuckers are named because they were thought to suckle milk from goats. The Greeks thought so, and their man Aristotle was sure of it; the Romans ran with him, I mean, Aristotle, right? and then Linnaeus followed them. All wrong, like a good many other traditions: the birds are actually flying…
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Common Warblers
Norther Parula (Parula americana).Ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapilla). Note that black-bordered orange racing strip on the head.Northern Waterthrush (Parkesia noveboracensis).Black-throated Blue (Dendroica caerulescens). This is a female, neither black-throated nor blue. Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas); a male, with his distinctive black mask. These were all seen in Prospect yesterday, along with numerous others, including a Kentucky, rare…
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TX Insects
Walking Stick on Peter’s bins. Texas has at least 16 species. Leaf-cutter ant (Atta texana) highway. The ants are returning to their sprawling underground colonies with leaf fragments, which, farmer-like, they feed to the fungus they actually eat.Thornbush Dasher (Micrathyria hagenii).Band-winged Dragonlet (Erythrodiplax umbrata).Antlion. This is the adult stage.We saw many antlion traps, where buried…
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Altamira Oriole
Big bright male Altamira (Icterus gularis).A nest in progress: a woven sack hanging from the branches. This species, which just barely makes it into South Texas, makes the largest nest in North America: they can be up to two feet long.The female is carrying something stringy here for this nest.This was another nest elsewhere. The…
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Rallidae
The Common Gallinule (Gallinula galeata), formerly known as the Common Moorhen, now “split” or separated from that Eurasian species (C. chloropus). Unlike the somewhat similar American Coot (Fulica americana), this bird doesn’t have lobbed toes. Look at the long toes on this Sora Rail (Porzana carolina). All the better for walking through oozy marshes.We saw…
Backyard and Beyond 