Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

mthew

  • Night Hawk

    What do birds do at night? It’s clearly a question people find intriguing. But you probably already know the answer even if you don’t know much about birds. Most birds are diurnal, so like most of us they sleep at night. And like us, they usually tuck themselves away somewhere safe and sound. In the…

  • Another Sunset Park Elm

    Knots, galls, cankers? Whatever is going on here makes for a massive bole. This is one of a pair in front of an apartment named Elmo…

  • Red-tailed Two

    Continuing our primer from the other day, we now present a mature Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis).Compared to that early sighting, this one look rather larger (even though it was higher up), making me think it was a female. Pairs of hawks should be in the bonding and mating stage in the city now. There are…

  • Homeboy Mammal

    Originally posted on Backyard and Beyond: First glance on rounding the corner of a shady tree: I thought this was a hairy cat on the loose. I mean, a big, low-slung hairball, one of those Persians who’s been to Paris, if you know what I mean.Woodchuck. Whistlepig. Groundhog. Land beaver. Marmota monax. In Green-Wood. I’ve…

  • Red-tailed One

    Perched near the edge of Green-Wood Cemetery, a Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) surveys the scene. One of the classic field marks of this species is the vaguely V-shaped white splotching on the back. The band of darker splotches across the belly is another tell. (In the west, things get more complicated ~ there are some…

  • Sunset Park Elm

    Solar powered.

  • Sunset Park Elm

    At dawn. Still at dawn, but with a different filter. These were taken after last weekend’s blizzard.

  • Great Horned

    Bubo virginianus, bold as daylight.

  • The Acrobat’s Red Belly

    A Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) showing his generally covert namesake, the kinda-reddish belly, while going for the triple roll. What looks like sweet potato is a peanut butter concoction stuffed into a coconut shell at the feeders in the Ramble.

  • Momento Mori Monday

    Et in Arcadia ego.