mthew
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Hemaris thysbe
Hummingbird Clearwing Moth.I love watching these creatures at work. They are almost constantly in motion, never landing on flowers like bees and butterflies, and moving quickly between different flowers. I’m surprised these phone pictures came out so well. Although the moth is throwing its own shadow over its legs, there are bits where you can…
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Swamp Loosestrife
Decodon verticillatus is also called water-willow and whorled loosestrife. The flowers are spectacular, but you sure have to get close to them.These leaves certainly look rather “willowy,” but the species isn’t related to Salix. It is related to Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria), the dreadful invasive, but D. verticillatus is a native from Maine to Louisiana.…
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Great Golden Digger
Busy as a wasp. A Great Golden Digger Wasp (Sphex ichneumoneus).She builds a nearly vertical burrow with cells off of a central tunnel, each stockpiled with paralyzed grasshoppers and katydids for her young.
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Raptor Wednesday
Ran into a family of four Bald Eagles at Mt. Loretto on Staten Island. Haliaeetus leucocephalus: this is one of this year’s youngsters. The white head and tail feathers come in fully by age 4 or so. The bird was making a racket, calling its parents for food. Big, but still learning. An adult flew…
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Just Ds
Blue-fronted Dancer (Argia apicalis).These were found around the Bronx River in the Thane Forest at the NYBG. They get a good distance away from the water, for damselflies. All the above are males. The tan one is a juvenile. Here’s a brown form female. A blue form female. Complicated, eh? Add the juvenile female, and you…
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Some Birds
House Wren. Looks like they were nesting in this old snag.Brown-headed Cowbird male. The female was nearby. Sign. Look up:Robins; late or second brood. I usually only catch Little Blue Herons distantly, passing overhead at Jamaica Bay or bobbing distantly about in the marshes there. This one was hunting on Spring Pond in Blue Heron…
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Ssss
Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis), the only species of snake I’ve ever run into in New York City. And that hasn’t been all that frequently. But they’re out there. And this lovely specimen was in the Bronx. * It’s tremendously unfair to animals to compare them to people. Pig, snake, rat, insect, etc. Yesterday, Orange Spray-on-Tan…
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Beasts of Mesopotamia
The Morgan Library and Museum also has a marvelous exhibition entitled Noah’s Beasts: Sculpted Animals From Ancient Mesopotamia. In the nookish Thaw Gallery until August 27th, the exhibition is gem-like. Like Thoreau, so well represented nearby, the unknown sculptors were profound observers of animals. The lion’s gaze meets yours. (Not much bigger than a baseball, the…
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Inexhaustible Thoreau
Forty-seven manuscript volumes, seven thousand pages, two million words: the journals of Henry David Thoreau have been edited, extracted, and analyzed over and over again. Beginning with himself, since he used his journals for notes and drafts of articles, books, and speeches. It was his practice to write every day (life, of course, made exceptions);…
Backyard and Beyond 