mthew

American Winter Ants/Prenolepis imparis herding Oleander Aphids/Aphis nerii on underside of Common Milkweed/Asclepias syriaca. The ants harvest the aphids’ excretions, or honeydew, and protect the aphids from photographer’s fingers and the like.

A female Downy Woodpecker/Dryobates pubescens on a Tuliptree/Liriodendron tulipifera. I heard a Red-bellied Woodpecker/Melanerpes carolinus above her… And caught a glimpse. A wee Brown Creeper/Certhia americana on a neighboring pine (above), flew to the woodpeckery Tuliptree to make it three foragers on the same tree at the same time.

A female American Kestrel going after a Coopers Hawk. This is definitely the Kestrel’s territory, but… For the second time, the Kestrel seemed uninterested in the Merlin perched in a European Beech near her regular Chapel hangout. This tree is also a regular Kestrel perch. (This was the forth time I’ve seen a Merlin in…

Gory edition. A young Red-tail with a rat. Long-memoried readers may recall last November, when another young Red-tail ate a pigeon on this same roof. That attracted crows, who came back for the remains left there. Unlike, say wings, all of rat is edible. This time, the hawk carried away the aft section of the…

Handily, or should we say footily, for field measurement, my boots are 12″ long. Armillaria mellea. Daldinia on tree stump. Wine Cup/Stropharia rugosoannulata The stem of one of these had a small slug eating their way through it. Another example why the urban foraging trend is such a bad idea: so many other lifeforms in…

New York’s shitty corporate tool of a governor is trying to pocket veto this one. (It was a bad day for America when the Republicans became fascists and the Democrats became Republicans.) *** When is an eagle a duck? A Medium post for Veterans Day

I assumed my last Monarch of the year was the one I saw on October 19. But this past Monday, November 6th, I found a male drinking Spotted Horsemint nectar in Janet’s Meadow in Green-Wood. (According to iNaturalist, one was also seen on Staten Island that day.)

The last Odonata of the season should be Autumn Meadowhawks and Common Green Darners. Common Green Darners are a migratory species, so expect them to be passing through. I saw one being eaten by a Kestrel on Oct 24. This was one of half a dozen seen November 6th. I waited a while before I…