Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

Signs

We’re entering the quiet season. You have to look harder for signs of life. Here’s a leaf-miner on American Sycamore, perhaps Ectoedemia plantanella.

Backlit by the sun, this blotch mine on Pin Oak reveals the frass, waste product, on the left, and the organism, a caterpillar, at the upper right, all between layers of leaf.

Eggs of leaf-footed bug laid on underside of Hickory leaflet. They’ve all leaf-footed it out of there.

Eggs of… something under White Oak leaf.

Clustered Midrib Gall Wasp on underside of Swamp Chestnut Oak.

This may be Brown Spot Needle Blight, a fungus called Lecanosticta aciola on the long needles of Longleaf Pine. A few of these southern wonders have been planted in Green-Wood to greet the warming temperatures.

2 responses to “Signs”

  1. I haven’t told you in a long time how much I enjoy these missives from your love affair with the wild, the simplicity, the beauty, the carefully chosen words of your posts. Much gratefulness to you, kindred spirit.

    1. Thank you so much for your kind words.

Leave a comment