November 2022

Tuesday morning’s lunar eclipse. Hand-held camera through the open window as cold air rushed in about 5:20 a.m. I was wearing shorts outside Monday when the temps were in the mid-70s. It was in the 40s Tuesday morning. A cold front like that this time of year should be portrayed on weather maps as being…

Uh-oh.

An autumnal Wood Duck. Very, very leery of bipeds… But carefully using a large drooping cherry tree as a blind, I got within 15 or so feet as the skittish bird fed.

The London Plane across the street was trimmed of its dead branches last week. Here’s the before… with the cherry-picker already scouting out the situation. And after. Over the years, we’ve seen these dead branches in action: as Kestrel perch and Kestrel prey cache; as crow raiding-site (see Kestrel cache); Red-bellied Woodpecker haunt (and again);…

Several leafy twigs of a mature White Oak were on the ground last week so I picked them up while scouting for galls. I found these Noctuoidea caterpillars. Still working on narrowing these down even to genus, even on Bugguide, but what a great reminder of all the creatures that live off oaks! [Update: for…

Pin Oak, Quercus palustris, is ubiquitous in NYC. The smallish acorns are all over the sidewalks now. (Palustris means swamp; the trees can take the compacted, anaerobic soils of tree pits.) I enjoy hearing them blonking atop cars this time of year. Other creatures enjoy them for other reasons. Bur Oak, Q. macrocarpa is unusual…

Yes, it’s time once again for American Kestrels on the old chapel at Green-Wood. The male is eating something. I suspect Common Green Darner.

Two millimeters long, under the microscope at 40x and 20x. Found the first on a curtain two weekends ago. Last Wednesday, when it got up to about 70F, there were a bunch of the window screen. And, being 2mm long, inside the screen. This is a psyllid, one of the creatures that induces galls in…