May 2020
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The Central Park Effect
The Rio Grande Valley is one of the great birding places in the U.S. Think Roger Tory Peterson’s “South Texas Specialities” in the back of his Eastern/Central field guide. It’s also the fraught border between two intimately connected nations. A few years ago, before Trump’s even more white supremacist approach to anti-immigration politics than the…
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Crowing
Fish Crows, by the sound of them, harrying the male American Kestrel. They did not seem to be making much of an impression. In other media, I didn’t do one of my listening tours this year because of you know what, but I did talk to WNYC’s Amy Pearl about listening to nature.
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Plants & Things
American Sweetgum seed pods getting larger. European Beech nuts. While we’re on the beech, a mess of woolly aphids. Note, by the way, the downy hairiness on these leaves! Black cherry in bloom. Being farmed by a Nomada bee (I think). Peach leaf curl, caused by a fungus. Aromatic sumac. Feeding a Silver-spotted Skipper. And…
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A Bee-y Slope
Now, I know some people will freak out over a lot of bees flying around at ankle-height in the spring sun, but if you make sure you don’t step on any of these mounds, you’ll be fine. Not because they’re going to attack you, but because it’s quite rude to stomp on somebody’s nest. (More…
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Raptor Wednesday
In a London plane tree across the street, the American Kestrel male stashes prey. The nesting kestrels used this same spot two years ago, too. These last two pictures are from the same day, but different caches. Both, obviously, bird. Note that the kestrels will eat their prey’s feet, swallowing with the toes pointed outwards,…
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Some Insects
Convergent Lady Beetle (Hippodamia convergens), found inside, let outside. How delightful to observe a lady b. who isn’t the omnipresent Harmonia axyridis, which is larger, rounder, and far more varied in spot-count and even color than our native species. Two Rufus-chested Cellophane Bees (Colletes thoracicus). Most of our wild bees (a.k.a. not invasive honeybees) are…
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Beginning Again, or Monday, Monday
Full of pollen and spores, covered in spiderweb, you don’t walk through nature, you walk in nature. Blinking Common Grackles.
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Pandemic Notes #3
Among the 21,138+ Covid-19 deaths in NYC are neighborhood men who ran a local pizza joint and a corner bodega. There are now 96,662+ coronavirus deaths in U.S. under the vicious incompetence of Donald Trump and his grand-old-pary-of-death-enablers. (These are Saturday’s numbers and will be bigger when this is published.) Because the Republican-fascists are waging…
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Here They Come/Here They Come/Here They Come
Yesterday morning the “bronk!” of a raven lifted my eyes to the window. They were passing right over the building. Four of them! Another followed from another angle. Looks like the class of 2020 is on the wing. Two of them landed on St. Michael’s for a brief perch above their domaine. A hour or…
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Backyard and Beyond 