September 2020
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Shaken, in Black and White
The Republican cult is disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters and working to suppress voting and create chaos in battleground states. A familiar crew of corrupt fascist oligarchs are funding this assault. And now the Republican plan, forthrightly announced in the 1970s, to return the federal courts to their traditional role as reactionary redoubt of…
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Warbler Close-ups
This Black-throated Green caught a spider, and probably a lot more but the spider was big and visible. Magnolia. And another Magnolia. More on the western bird massacre: it’s starting to look like starvation.
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Warblers, Etc.
A great front of birds flying south on a chill wind swept into Brooklyn on Tuesday morning to be greeted by an orange-red sun rising in the smoke haze wafted here from the west’s conflagrations. Mature male American Redstart. Female and juvenile male Redstarts out-numbered the old males by far and were simply falling out…
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Earthlings
Ok, so Venus has some gas that may be the byproduct of life. So perhaps our first alien encounter is a fart. Meanwhile, here on Earth: Red-banded Leafhopper (Graphocephala coccinea). Coppery Leafhopper (Jikradia olitoria). Curculio genus weevil, with a snout long enough to reach into nuts and acorns. Found on an old northern red oak…
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Raptor Wednesday
Osprey over the water… the Valley Water in Green-Wood. These birds will be abandoning us soon, some heading as far as South America. On Monday, I had simultaneous Peregrines on St. Michael’s and, for the first time since the spring, on the Industry City smokestack. Consistently over the last five years, they abandon the high…
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Witch Hazel Trifecta
A busy picture of American witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) and associated gall-makers. Witch Hazel Cone Gall, created by a aphid (Hormaphis hamamelidis). Spiny Witch Hazel Gall, created by another aphid (Hamamelistes spinosus). Interesting that the spiny galls run larger than the plant’s actual fruit capsules. Ant near the fruit, and that could be a winged-form…
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Mushroom Monday
My boot, at bottom of image, is almost exactly one foot long. An enormous example of Berkeley’s Polypore (Bondarzewia berkeleyi). Another large polypore, Black-staining (Meripilus sumstinei). Details of the Black-staining.
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Whistlepigs
dewy grass wet-bellied woodchuck good morning I come across woodchuck/groundhog holes in Green-Wood with some frequency. (Good to keep at least one eye on the ground there, lest you miss a grass-clutching moth or a one-way trip into the underworld…) But I hadn’t seen an actual Marmota monax for some time until last weekend. A…
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Spotted Leaves
Speckled Tar Spot on maple. Oak LeafBlister on red oak. Pear Rust on Callery pear, top and underside of leaf. (All IDs tentative.)
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Dining
We get a lot of vegetarians on this blog. But that’s not the whole story, of course. Mantid devouring a skipper. Wings discarded. Ants scavenging a… meadow cricket? Egret tossing down a small fry. Young Northern Mockingbird dispatching a dog day cicada.
Backyard and Beyond 