mthew
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Water Street Peregrines
For the last couple of months, I’ve periodically seen a single Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) hanging around the scrape at 55 Water Street. This is an established nesting site, complete with nest cams (but the website hasn’t been updated since 2011). Most of the time I’ve looking (optically enhanced, you can bet) from the other…
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Oh, Jackie!
The creature that lives in the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in Central Park has rarely been seen. This 1889 photograph by Otto Sarony, from the files of the New-York Hysterical Society, is the only known authenticated image. It was taken well before the popular naming of the creature, which used to be known simply as…
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Hairy Nest?
A female Hairy Woodpecker (Picoides villosus). Less common in our area than the smaller but otherwise very similar Downy Woodpecker. I find that the best way to differentiate these species is to look at the bill/head size ratio. Note how this bird’s bill is almost as long as her head; the Downy’s bill length is…
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Stung!
Is it too early for a couple of quick ones? Non-Russian vodka, with Bloody Mary camouflage, if you please. This book is unrelievedly depressing and despairing. It makes you want to jump in the ocean and drown… but you’ll probably be stung dead by jellies before that happens. Should your grandchildren ever get ahold of…
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Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) is another of those unfortunately-named birds, since the yellow belly is really hard to see. The namers were looking at dead specimens. The sapsucking part is accurate, though; these birds will drill horizontal rows of holes in trees to bleed sap, which they will lap up along with the bugs…
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Springtime
On the water, American Black Ducks in action. Considering the brief but un-Disney-like results to follow, best to look away for the moment since this is an all-ages blog.Up above, the work of a Red-bellied Woodpecker, which he will have to defend against:Unless a Cooper’s Hawk intervenes. It could go either way. Meanwhile:The snowbirds, Dark-eyed…
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Sights
Yesterday, in Brooklyn Bridge Park:A lone female Red-breasted Merganser (Mergus serrator).As a Man of Hair, I do appreciate the random crest feathers.Unexpectedly, a Red-necked Grebe (Podiceps grisegena). I last ran into one in February. The red of the neck, breeding plumage, looks like it is just starting to come in. The bird was spending more…
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Last of the Snowy Owls
Wind-swept and plastic-strewn grasslands at the edge of the city. Can you spot the Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus)?Not all of the white blobs here are (unfortunately ubiquitous) white plastic bags. This heavily-barred Snowy is one of this winter’s massive influx of the birds from the Arctic. This bird and its cohort will be trying to…
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Eating Crow
I’ve been hearing and/or seeing crows most days lately in my Brooklyn neighborhood. There seems to be a family of three — as highly social birds, they will maintain multi-generational family units — in the area. The other day I saw one with nesting material in bill. Meanwhile, in other counties of New York (outside…
Backyard and Beyond 