mthew
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Building
A Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) shapes a growing nest with its body. “Its” because this could be either male or female, as both work on the nest. Cornell’s All About Birds does say that on average males do more gathering of nesting materials and females more actual nest-building. Note the ribbon: our cast-offs are finding…
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Bloodroot
Bloodroot. What a name, eh? Sanguinaria canadensis has blood-red sap. (The “root” is actually a rhizome.) The sap has historically been used as a dye and for medicinal purposes. They emerge enveloped by the leaf, then shoot above this protective cloak before opening. Look for these on sunny days when they offer their pollen to…
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Hepatica
A single blooming Anemone in the leaf litter. But more are on the way. Some interesting taxonomic issues raised by this one: The genus name for this spring ephemeral used to be Hepatica and some still think it is. Hepatica, meanwhile, is used as the common name; it’s also called Liverleaf or Liverwort. I’m not…
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Intertidal Zone
Originally posted on Backyard and Beyond: The tides increase as you approach the Bay of Fundy. While the average difference between high and low is five feet here in NYC, it’s 10 feet in Maine. This means the state’s rocky shore is full of tidal pools, pockets of water temporarily abandoned as the tide pulls…
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Oh, Schist!
I never get tired of quoting that guy in the Times who wrote succinctly that “Manhattan is gneiss, but full of schist.” The bare bones of the little island of Mannahatta are exposed on the upper, upper west side where a ridge of mica schist, the famed Manhattan schist, rises over the flatlands of Harlem.…
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Raptor Wednesday: Red Hook Edition
A friend sent me a picture of a pair of American Kestrels hanging out in Red Hook. Later in the day, I went by and found the female on an antenna on the same building, which is probably the location of, or near, a nest cavity. Evidently, they have been around for years. Locals insist…
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City Lores
I saw my first egrets of the year Saturday, with three Great Egrets and four Black-crowned Night-herons at Floyd Bennett Field’s little freshwater pond, amidst a thunderous chorus of spring peepers. On Sunday, I saw another Great Egret in Inwood, looking here towards the Bronx, with perhaps a bit of Marble Hill in there as…
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Mourning Cloak
Originally posted on Backyard and Beyond: One of the earliest butterflies of spring, the mourning cloak, Nymphalis antiopa. Appropriately enough for its mournful name, this one was photographed today in Green-Wood Cemetery.
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Ruins
In the Henry Street Basin next to the old Port of New York Authority Grain Terminal* colossus, there were a pair or Mallards, a Gadwall, and a pair of Red-breasted Mergansers. And then there was this: Some kind of carp. Usually, the members of the Cyprinidae are freshwater fish. Here, next to the Gowanus Bay…
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