mthew
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Blue Dasher, White Tail
You have to get pretty close to see the white face on one of NYC’s most common dragonflies, the Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis). This is a male; as he gets older, his blue abdomen will get more powdery or chalkier looking. Such pruinescence, as it’s called, is caused by wax exuded from the animals’ cuticle.…
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Snapper
Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina), the smaller of two seen this weekend. Note the spotless shell. Compare with another snap seen two years ago in the Discovery Center pond. Much more growth on the shell of that younger specimen. The huge beastie I’ve seen in Prospect Park’s watercourse a few times over the years has also…
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Traces of the Ice Age
Don’t you just love these? These grooves are found along the path in the forest of the NYBG, and time and generations of feet have worn them down slightly. They’re glacial striations, gouged out by the rubble on the bottom the ice as it scraped across the hard surface rock. These can be found in…
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Clearwings
Another critter hard to pin down. This is a Snowberry Clearwing Moth (Hemaris diffinis), named after one of its host plants and, more obviously, those see-through parts of the wings. This was moving quickly between honeysuckle blossoms, another of its caterpillar hosts, and proving hard to capture in the lens. Note that it mimics a…
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Rosamond Purcell
If you dig deep enough into this blog, you will come across a near-surreptitious image of a part of Olaus Worm’s famous cabinet of curiosities. The original print of the Museum Wormianum was published as the frontispiece of the 1655 Worm’s Museum, or History of Very Rare Things, Natural and Artificial, Domestic and Exotic, Which…
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It’s Coming
Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) creeping into a subway station, an elevated subway station: Bedford Park 4 train in the Bronx. The little reddish rootlets help the aerial vine form of this crafty plant grab hold of a foundation, like a tree, or a sluggish commuter.
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Skippers
In my listing of NYC butterflies, I noted that the skippers are hard to identify. These little butterflies in the Hesperiidae family are mostly small, orangish to tawny brown, and have a tendency to look like jet planes when perched.This male Sachem (Atalopedes campestris)–identification tentative–assumes the position: hindwings and forewings are separately opened at different…
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Vane
This large wind vane on a building on Hanson Place and South Elliot is one of the delights of downtown Brooklyn. It is a sight rapidly being overshadowed by the generic glass towers rising rising around the neighborhood, which make the borough look like Anywheresville. Three things: 1. This actually does move, which, for a…
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Trio of Dragonflies
12-spotted Skimmer (Libellula pulchella) male. Common Whitetail (Plathemis lydia) male. Eastern Pondhawk (Erythemis simplicicollis) male. What’s up with all the males? They’re patrolling territory, in this case the ponds of Green-Wood, while females generally only show up to these sites when they want to mate. Otherwise the females are over the fields and meadows, at…
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Brooklyn Long-horns
This black bee was a real brawler, tackling each flower like a linebacker, rolling up and over the flower parts until it was upside-down. Note the long opera-glove-like sleeves of pollen on the hind legs. These legs have more hair than the other two sets, and these pollen packs are rather larger than you see…
Backyard and Beyond 