mthew
-
Nuthatchery
There have been a lot of White-breasted Nuthatches in Green-Wood this winter.Since they’re so vocal, I’ve heard them throughout my forays there.And when more than one of these things starts calling — three in a single tree, say — they make an astonishing radio-interferrance mess of noise.Yes, the White-breasted is a bit red in the…
-
Raptor Wednesday
We interrupt our week of small birds with an eater of small birds: a Merlin. In this case, though, this small falcon was being harried by Blue Jays.Which meant lots of noise, almost all of it from the screeching jays.
-
Red-breasted Nuthatch Day
Very determined is this bird. The typical procedure is to score a seed from some thick evergreen, fly it to a nearby deciduous tree with ample branches and gnarly bark, and attack!Then repeat.But you know what else is important?Water.Happy New Year.
-
Red-breasted Nuthatch Eve
If you look closely and follow a line extending from the sharp bill of this Red-breasted Nuthatch, you’ll see a dark round seed, just a tad larger than the bird’s eye, hatched into a crevice of bark.Whack goes the chisel-bill!
-
Raptor Us
As I turned the corner onto 41st Street across from the park, preparing for the hike up the moraine, I noticed a big bird take off from the slope above the park’s retaining wall. It was a Red-tailed Hawk, of course, and it landed in a London plane tree anchored in the sidewalk. Crossing the…
-
Barking Up What Tree?
The pictures of this tree’s bark this morning stirred up some interest, so: here are some more clues.Winter tree ID: I took a whole class once, but I’m stumped here.
-
Bark
Another tree I can’t quite identify. Click for larger views of barky life.
-
Sap Sucker II
Back to this… birch?This time — and it was the same time as yesterday’s Tufted Titmouse, give or take a minute — a White-breasted Nuthatch is partaking of the sapsucker holes.In Green-Wood Cemetery at this time of year, you can go a good distance without seeing any birds. But when you come across them, the…
-
Sap Sucker I
Whatever this tree is, it had been roundly tapped by Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers over the years.And the little wells of sap attract others. For instance:Here’s a Tufted Titmouse in early December. Check out those tiny toes getting footholds in the bark, in the sap holes. Tomorrow: another visitor at the same time.
-
Raptor Wednesday
This Red-tailed Hawk sailed past me to land further up a slope in Green-Wood. Had it captured something? As you probably know, most raptor strikes come up empty. But not this time. Was it a thrush?This perch in a pine seemed to be an even better butcher’s block. (It gets gory from here).Visceral even.And within four…
