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.”

Woodcock Madness

I’m leading a bird walk in Green-Wood tomorrow for the Brooklyn Bird Club. The wind tonight is coming from N/NW, so I don’t think we’ll have a windfall of Labrador twisters or mud bats, as American Woodcock are also known, but you never know… http://brooklynbirdclub.org/event/green-wood-cemetery-2/ Here’s one from the archives to whet your timberdoodle appetite.

Backyard and Beyond

A few of the nine American Woodcock I saw on Thursday in Prospect Park. Or, in this one’s case:Outside the park. On Vanderbilt St. in Windsor Terrace. I herded this one off the street. A stalking cat gave me the side-eye for doing so.The bird landed in the only patch of open ground around. But then the door behind it opened and a dog and walker emerged from the apartment building.  There’s no rest for the winged.

Reports from around the city tallied dozens of dazed and confused and probably hungry birds. March is when they migrate. They seem to have been blind-sided by the storm. The Wild Bird Fund had 35 of them in the other day. I saw one snagged by a Red-tailed Hawk, and heard of another being so captured, as well as one being jumped by the Prospect Park Goshawk.

Spring arrives two weeks earlier now than…

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