mthew
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Etymology
On first looking into Chapman’s Homer, or rather, let’s be real, a quotation from it in a third party, my eyes slid home on this: All done, he all to Thetis brought, and held all up to her./ She tooke them all, and like t’ hawke (surnamed Osspringer) This is the at the end of…
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Crustaceous Tuesday
I can’t get enough of these Mud Fiddler Crabs/Minuca pugnax of the Gowanus Canal.
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Woodpeckers
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker in the same tree as a Downy Woodpecker. The Downy was doing some serious excavation. This is a Kentucky Yellowwood, which I’ve found these little woodpeckers on before digging hard for some kind of prey in there.
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Predation
This young Red-tailed Hawk just scooped up an American Woodcock off the ground. I caaught this iamge because I’d seen the Woodcock land down below and brought up my camera just as the bird flew again to land about 20 feet awy. That’s when the hawk swooped in, from I don’t know where. Then the…
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Royal Thrush
A Varied Thrush/Ixoreus naevius last week in Prospect Park. A rarity here, but common on the West Coast, where they nest in coniferous forests. I last saw one in Central Park in 2010.
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Variations on a Theme
Clustered Midrib Gall Wasp/Andricus dimorphus on underside of Swamp Chestnut Oak/Quercus michauxii.
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Raptor Wednesday
For the fifth straight year, I’ve spotted Merlins in this linden tree next to the Steinway Mausoleum in the fall, winter, and early spring. This was my first sighting for fall ’25, on October 26th. The Merlin flew away when this American Kestrel showed up. This tree is a great 360-degree lookout. The Kestrel flew…
Backyard and Beyond 