October 2023

Suddenly, Autumn Meadowhawks! Thursday’s sunny temperatures in the mid 60sF brought Sympetrum vicinum out in force. Maybe more than I’ve ever seen? These are the last Odonata of the season, migratory Common Green Darners will continue to pass though, so I always keep an eye out for them.

Recently, Green-Wood has been visited by a Great Cormorant/Phalacrocorax carbo. A Western Kingbird/Tyrannus verticalis. And a Lark Sparrow/Chondestes grammacus. First time I’ve seen any of these here in the cemetery. The Lark S was in the new meadow, which the legions trampled though like Visigoths. And more sad news: the Great Cormorant…

A last frenzied hurrah of activity…

That seems to be an eel, which must have been carried in from the coast a few blocks away. Not bad for an afternoon’s sightings in Green-Wood. Earlier in the day, two American Kestrels were overhead of me on 4th Avenue and 12th Street in Manhattan. Here’s one of them:

The new meadow in Green-Wood has attracted the Northern Italian Wall Lizards. So many nooks and crannies! So many sunning places! So many things to eat! (And now that fall has really come, presumably so many places to abide the winter.)

I mean, they almost always announce themselves with a belted-out rattling cry.

I’ve been sending Cynipid galls to the Forbes Lab at the University of Iowa. They’re doing a genetic sequencing project on these oak gall wasps. (Here’s is a great introduction to this fascinating lifestyle.) But since these are appealing structures, other animals want in as well: inquilines may or may not crowd out or kill…

Eastern Carpenter Bee: one of our biggest bees. Bramble Mason Wasp: one of our a medium-sized wasps. One of our smaller bees, about 5mm long: Dialictus subgenus of Lassioglossum. There are a LOT of tiny wasp species. This one isn’t even that small. It’s twice as long as a 2mm long gall wasp. (Not counting…

Bramble Mason Wasp/Ancistrocerus adiabatus Smiling Mason Wasp/Ancistrocerus campestris Bramble Mason Wasp/Ancistrocerus adiabatus Smiling Mason Wasp/Ancistrocerus campestris European Tube Wasp/Ancistrocerus gazella Three of the local Eumeninae potter and mason wasp species sport a smile-like pattern of two scuttellum spots and one transverse band on the metanotum. (There’s another regional smiler, Ancistrocerus catskill, but I haven’t come…