mthew
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Songbirds
Finally, some songbirds! I’ve spent a lot of time in Green-Wood this winter and it has been barren of some of the usual winter bird suspects. So it was good to run into Tufted Titmouse, White-breasted Nuthatch, Golden-crowned Kinglet (rather unexpectedly) and a small flock of American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) all hanging close together on…
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Mammal Monday
Deer tracks on the continent. Found on the grounds of the Bartow-Pell Mansion, in Pelham Bay Park. (FYI for you out-of-towners: the Bronx is the only part of New York City that is not an island.) On nearby Hunter’s Island, part of the same park, but no longer an island. Last time we were here…
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Superb Owl
Bubo virginianusA Great Horned Owl on a recent winter day. (For completists, there actually is a Lesser Horned Owl, found in southern South America.) Click here for more superb owls. Faux superb owl… and friends.
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Democracy
Abraham Lincoln, who left copious scraps of paper with jotted thoughts instead of a diary, wrote upon one of them: “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.” When I…
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Nests
You might not think this is a good time of year to be talking about nests, but we found two interesting examples of the more than a few you can see in trees now that the leaves are gone. This was upside-down on the grass recently in Green-Wood near a conifer. How did it survive…
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Jawbones
Rodent. Which one? Found amid an owl (and other?) pellet bonanza recently.Jaws a-plenty, in fact, but no skulls. The last time I found a good patch of pellets, there were lots of skulls. Some owls will eat the head first, then the body later. Inch scale here.And this one with the long incisor. When I…
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Raptor Wednesday
On a very cold recent Sunday, this Cooper’s Hawk was perched just inside the 5th Avenue gates of Green-Wood Cemetery. There was no sound or feather of another bird nearby.The fat resiny buds mark this tree as a Horse Chestnut. And these eyes mark everything that moves.
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Sappy
Sap wells drilled by… a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, presumably. The birds will lap up the sap and any insects attracted to the slightly sweet liquid. Other birds may gather at such wells to eat the insects that are also attracted to the sap. This insect gathering is, of course, mostly a non-winter habit. This winter, there…
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Bracket
Or shelf. Monday’s mushroom, or fruiting fungal body, was growing out of a stump in Green-Wood. The volcanic cone of old wood, all hollowed out inside, was host to several such ‘shrooms: this was the smaller and fresher looking of them. I know it’s the beginning of the week, but just think of the fungal…
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Listening
Last Sunday, I gave a sermon here in the church of nature that was on the critical side of polemic. Thank you for sticking through the rant. You’re good people. My complaint include the over-worked soundtrack of Planet Earth II. As somebody who has led “listening tours” (the mockery of politicians is intentional here) of…
Backyard and Beyond 