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.”

mthew

  • Raptor Wednesday

    Well, it wasn’t exactly the Feast of the Seven Fishes, but this male Kestrel grabbed a lizard off the ground and dispatched it like an appetizer and then three minutes later Caught a Dark-eyed Junco. I was suprised that the lizard was out and about. Big mistake, in retrospect. There was still some snow on…

  • Paper Rooms?

    The big paper nests of Bald-faced Hornets are even found in street trees. Once I found a Tufted Titmouse digging out the remnants of one of these nests, presumably for what was left of the larval wasps. But this post is about a note in the weekly Hudson River Almanac, put out by the state…

    Paper Rooms?
  • Nuthatchin’

    Pale Red-bellied Nuthatch foraging under a spruce, tossing things around, presumably looking for spruce seeds.

    Nuthatchin’
  • Winter Solstice

    A bit of summer sunflower for the shortest day.

    Winter Solstice
  • Scritch

    Scritch
  • “What has it got in its pocketses?”

    Clearing out the closet and look what I found in several pockets?

  • Raptor Wednesday

    The female that has made Sunset Park her territory. And one of the males in Green-Wood.

  • Golden-crowned

    Golden-crowned
  • Mushroom Monday

    Phlegmacium flavescentipes.

    Mushroom Monday
  • Coney Island of the Mind

    Fish Crows. Ring-billed Gull. American Herring Gull, and is that a fish head? Common Loon.

    Coney Island of the Mind