Backyard and Beyond

The coast of Brooklyn is mostly inaccessible. But here and there…

You can’t actually see the telling details in my pictures, but this is, by all accounts (dozens now on ebird), a Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta). At Bush Terminal Park.

Walking northwards on 2nd Avenue, as close as a civilian can get to the bay in this part of Sunset Park, this giant smokestack often has a perching raptor. This Red-tail had just excreted.

Quite the murmuration (for Brooklyn) at the Sims recycling facility, where gulls and crows also congregate over the garbage.

This, too, is where the vagrant Swainson’s Hawk is generally found, harried by crows, and growing fat on rats.

From further back up the moraine. I’m pretty sure the light object at the right of the light tower in the center of the image is our Swainson’s.