April 2016
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Sunset Park Elm
The chartreuse edition.And on the micro level, a single seed from the rich crop the tree is now laden with. Remember, elms are wind-pollinated, so the early flowering resulting in early fruiting. On average, it takes 70,900 of these little winged seeds to make up a pound, according to this USFS site. But wait, a…
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Redbudding
The Redbuds (Cercis canadensis) are coming, the Redbuds are coming! Another day, another tree.
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Monkish Meditation?
In fact, this Monk Parakeet (Myiopsitta monachus) is busy as any other bird foraging in the grass.
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Coney Island’s Endemic Species
Originally posted on Backyard and Beyond: You have to be a certain age to remember when Coney Island Whitefish teemed off of Brooklyn’s shores in such massive schools that beach-goers wouldn’t dare go into the water. Today, however, they’re a rare sight. Although sometimes mistaken for the pallid Manhattan eel, Mentula brevus, the Coney Island…
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Dire Ox
Originally posted on Backyard and Beyond: By now, a lot of you know about the abandoned brick-arched train tunnel underneath Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. But I’m guessing far fewer of you are aware of the caves honeycombing what the geologists call the “Heartland Formation” “Ravenswood Granodiorite” under Brooklyn Heights. I had a rare opportunity to…
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Natural Object: Paleontological Find
Originally posted on Backyard and Beyond: ? Brooklyn, which is located at the mouth of what Walt Whitman called “fish-shaped Paumanok,” using a Native American word for what we now call Long Island, is, geologically speaking, loosey-goosey. We are sitting on glacial till, the rubble (sands, clays, gravels, erratics, etc.) pushed down here during the…
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Duck!
It was an absurd thing to say, I admit, but it’s all I could think of this morning at the Battery just before I fell to the ground. This was no duck, it was an enormous eagle passing right over our heads as we kissed the concrete, so close we could hear the rush of…
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