mthew

A fair number of Osprey sightings at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge on Monday. Hard to get a count, what with the comings and goings, but I had a minimum of five separate individuals. That’s a lot of stick. Two nests are visible from the south-side trail at West Pond, but both of them had two…

Yesterday, the great Blue Heron in Green-Wood’s Sylvan Water was showing off some impressive fishing chops. Today, it’s the Great Egret. Ah, but this was just the sushi appetizer. A few minutes later, something more substantial. Meanwhile, a close encounter: one of the huge Common Snapping Turtles approached the Great Blue. First time I can…

This is a big, big year for periodical cicadas. Both the 13-year Brood XIX and the 17-year Brood XIII are emerging. All seven Magicicada species will be seen–but not all in any one place. The broods are “adjacent (but not significantly overlapping) in north-central Illinois.“ Unfortunately, none of this is happening where I am. I’d…

Well, I was looking for one kind of Gymnosporangium rust and found another on this Eastern Redcedar/Juniperus virginiana. Juniper-hawthorn Rust/G. globosum requires both a juniper and Hawthorn species, alternating life stages. On another species of Juniperus, these Tongues of Flame/G. clavariiforme don’t create a gall but just bust right out of the twigs. Several days…

Bumblebee-like, but smaller (this time of year) and faster… And these white facial markings. This looks like a male Blueberry Digger Bee/Hapropoda laboriosa. Seems to have bitten onto leaf to groom with all six legs in action.

An unusual NYC bird, since they tend to be more southerly. I had never seen one here in the city before this. At Brooklyn Bridge Park last weekend.

The drive-by edition. American Kestrel female photographed over 4th Avenue through windshield. Peregrine atop Gill Hodges Bridge, through windshield. Nesting Osprey pair at sports fields at Floyd Bennett Field. Picture through open window of moving car. Same day, further inland at Avenue P, through windshield again.

The Oystercatchers, that is.

A pair of Piping Plovers/Charadrius melodus on the urban beach. Federally listed as endangered on Great Lakes beaches and threatened on the East Coast beaches, these tiny shorebirds are almost but not quite hidden among the broken surf clams and civilizational detritus. These two are behind stringy fencing. There are a lot of signs, but…