mthew
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Mourning Dove
Zenaida macroura.A bird probably taken too much for granted by bird-watchers.Note the pale blue eye-ring. Watch long enough and you’ll see that the nictating membrane is the same color.
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Great Swamp
And so much lichen! The whitish looking parts of these trees are actually lichen in the bright sun. Lichen needs fairly clean air to grow, which is why it is generally — but not completely — absent from NYC.
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The Temp is Too Damn High
It’s getting so that “unseasonable” is no longer an appropriate word for never-ending autumn. This is the new seasonableness. On Friday, which set records around the region for high temperatures in a year shaping up to be the hottest on record, two Red-eared Sliders were sunning themselves in Prospect Park.A couple of Chipmunks were out…
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Rusty Blackbird
A male Rusty Blackbird (Euphagus carolinus) was working its way through a goopy edge of the Lower Pool in Prospect Park.It was tossing wet leaves around like a stevedore and plucking the goodness out of half-drowned Sweetgum balls.Gorgeous patterning here in the non-breeding plumage. Bright shadow seems to favor him more than direct sunlight: Rusty…
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Flight Sluggish and Swift
On a blooming goldenrod, the only visible flower around, a single bumblebee. It was warm enough yesterday for invertebrates, but they have damn few places to feed. This bee did seem a little sluggish, but it was roused by the proximity of my phone camera, and buzzed a short distance away, and then returned as…
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Be Thankful
Enjoy this Liriodendron arching up towards the sun, and be thankful that I am not reviewing David Waltner-Toews’s The Origin of Feces today, although it should be on everyone’s reading list. After all, “farm-to-table” is not nearly the complete cycle…. Happy Thanksgiving!
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Backyard and Beyond 