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.”

Pod

Gymnocladus dioicusVariation on a Kentucky Coffeetree (Gymnocladus dioicus) pod.

“Listen to them! The children of the night. What music they make.” Ok, Bela Lugosi’s Count D is talking about the Transylvanian wolves, but Brooklyn has some interesting early spring night musicians, too. Join me on a Brooklyn Brainery expedition to the edges of the borough to listen for spring peepers, choral frogs, and American Woodcock doing their mating flights on the 18th. It will be cold and dark and we will be depending on our ears more than our our eyes, for a change.

mthew

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4 responses to “Pod”

  1. Shannon

    How I would love to see a woodcock one day. We are already listening to frog chorus in Houston, samples of which are on my blog. Fabulous!

    Reply
    1. mthew

      They are devilishly hard to see. I usually bump into them, as it were: they see me and fly off twittering before I see them, so I often hear them first. Do you know about this resource, the Texas Breeding Bird Atlas? http://txtbba.tamu.edu/species-accounts/american-woodcock/

      Reply
  2. ELLEN BRYS

    Looking forward to this, Matthew! A lovely way to start Spring.
    Crossing my fingers that the woodcock shows up!

    Reply
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