July 2021

Some of the things seen this weekend here in Brooklyn, NY. Four of these were first-time sightings, five if you count the juvenile Red-bellied WP. I’ve seen plenty adults of this woodpecker species, but never a youngster. Definitely sent this data point to the New York Breeding Bird Atlas III project. Kings County has to…

European Paper Wasp, Polistes dominula. Note the diagnostic orange antennas. It may look like a Vespula ground yellowjacket in its black and yellow finery, but these antenna instantly mark if off as something else. As its common name suggests, this is an introduced-to-North-America species. What comes as some surprise to me is that they only…

The American Bullfrogs in the Dell Water are canny. They jump for watery cover before you see them. I suppose with Great Egrets and Green Herons occasionally stalking this strange little waterbody, they aren’t waiting for introductions. Strange in the sense that it’s a bit of a cut-de-sac. There’s no way for them to get…

By rough count, I have 77 wasp, midge, mite, and aphid gall-inducers logged on iNaturalist, most of them in Brooklyn, and most of these in Green-Wood Cemetery.

Having been forced to move their nest cavity site down to the next avenue, the Kestrels have returned to their old haunts closer to this avenue.

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Queen Anne’s lace is a-bloom. I often see flies congregating on it, but this particular one has a wasp and three beetles. The third beetle is out of focus on the lower left. But for now, I draw your attention to this chunky, colorful wasp. Chrysis angolensis was introduced to this hemisphere in the middle…