November 2022

Incoming! I was watching a Merlin from some distance and saw it fly off. Merlins may perch hunt, returning to the same perch after a foray. So when this raptor came back to the tree, I assumed it would be the Merlin again. The photos, of course, tell a different story. A mature Accipiter. Reddish…

Neighborhood American Kestrels. Winter heat inside. frigid temps outside = lens distortions.

It’s beginning to smell a lot like Raptor-mas! This is the same Red-tailed Hawk in flight, the light playing some changes on looks. This one, born this year, has a full crop and is enjoying some post-prandial sunshine and passing jet noise. Another day, elsewhere in Green-Wood: possibly the same heavily-marked juvenile being harassed by…

Raptor Week 2022 begins with this dino-soaring Cooper’s continuing to dine on a Northern Flicker.

Chambered light brown pith: Eastern Black Walnut (Juglans nigra). Chambered dark brown pith: Butternut (Juglans cinerea). Walnut/Butternut. Pith description detail from Woody Plants in Winter by Core and Ammons. Chambered pith is unusual. Here’s a White Oak (Quercus alba) twig for comparison. Core and Ammons describe Quercus as having “pith moderate, continuous, star-shaped in cross…

Note the hole. The branches of this Kentucky Yellowwood were well-mined. It took about four minutes of pecking and pounding to get inside the twig in this particular case. Now, these branches are live wood, but it looks like something has hollowed them out for growing/pupating. But what?

The petiole of the compound leaf of Yellowwood, Cladrastis kentukea, also known as Kentucky or American Yellowwood. As all the leaflets had already fallen off the leaf and the petiole’s days were numbered, I detached it to see the fresh leaf scar. The bud was waiting within. In many trees species, buds will be next…

Under a European Beech. A Cooper’s Hawk on the ground surrounded by Northern Flicker feathers. This tree also sheltered two American Woodcocks, unseen by me until they bolted one after the other as I sidled up behind the great bulk of the tree to take these photos. Probably the closest I’ve ever gotten to one…

Yellow Buckeye (Aesculus flava). This may be the first one I’ve ever seen sprouting. Horse-chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum). Looks delicious, doesn’t it? But don’t eat ’em, they’re toxic. Don’t confuse them with the sweet chestnut, e.g. marrons glacés.  The Horse-chestnut is a non-native tree planted everywhere as an ornamental. These big seeds are the originals used…

House Finch male in an exotic Sweetgum. Purple Finch female in the White Ash samaras. She has to bill-worry the seed out of the wing. Flatbread and Starling. And House Sparrows. The obscure red belly of a Red-bellied Woodpecker. Yellow-rumped Warblers with prey. It’s the season of periodic flocks of Robins. A hollow in this…