mthew
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Raptor Wednesday
A couple of species of raptors have been called Chicken Hawks, so the name isn’t very definitive.I’m using it here for this Cooper’s Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) because there are actually chickens in a yard next to this building in the Bronx. Roosters, too (technically illegal because of the noise, but law isn’t much enforced in…
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After the Woodcock Storm
On Saturday, I couldn’t help flushing more than two dozen “mud bats,” or American Woodcock (Scolopax minor), in Green-Wood Cemetery during an hour’s walk. On Sunday, although we spent nearly three hours there and covered a much greater extent of the grounds, we only only found three. One of them, though, allowed us to observe…
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Conundrum
The old philosophical question, “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” can perhaps be re-written as “if a woodlands is clearcut for a parking lot, will anyone notice”? * There was a shopping mall Now it’s all covered in flowers … Once…
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Woodcock Moon
According to a tweet from a British wildlife trust, November’s first full moon is known as a Woodcock Moon because it “coincides with an influx of these nocturnal woodlanders.” Well, yesterday, on this side of the Atlantic, following Friday night’s full moon, Green-Wood Cemetery was positively timberdoodle-riffic. I counted, conservatively, twenty-eight of the buffy orange-bellied…
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Yesterday, there were half a dozen mantids in the asters on Pier 6. It was short-sleeve weather, but Honeybees were the only obvious prey. There were, however, a pair of Monarch wings tucked away in the folds of the flower stems, suggesting someone snagged a butterfly. (Sighted about ten living Monarchs yesterday fluttering and gliding…
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Small Kites on the Loose
Surely the last butterflies of the year, these pics from last week? No, I saw two Monarchs heading south yesterday. This is so weird, the weird that is the new normal in the global disruptions of radical climate change. All the Monarchs we’ve seen so late into this fall? Probably not a good thing: they…
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Pitza Bee
Last Saturday was ridiculously warm. We spotted a dragonfly flying over the Halloweeened dogs and children of Fort Green, and when we ate outdoors, a honeybee kept visiting. The weather was fine, but there’s damn little nectar and pollen to be had this late in the year.The pickle on Cathy’s plate was also calling to…
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Et in Arcadia Ego
Still sparrow, moving fly.A White-throated Sparrow, no doubt recently arrived from the north. In NYC, dead birds can be reported to NYC Audubon. This database is intended to track window- and building-strikes. This bird was found in the middle of McGolrick Park, but I noted it anyway. It’s All Hallows, the Day of the Dead,…
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Memento Mori
Found in the shadowy gully between window and screen of someone else’s fourteenth story apartment, a veritable mausoleum of desiccated Diptera and at least one Hymenoptera. I’m just finishing up my costume for tonight: I’m going as a landfill full of Halloween garbage.
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Just Wow
Common Buckeye, Junonia coenia.
