mthew

Turkish Hazel/Corylus colurna *** In other news, I suspected Oppenheimer would win a bunch of Oscars in the industry’s own award-itself-fest, so I delved into the history in more detail.

Sad. This was a mighty Quercus alba. Half way down the slope, so one of its branches nicely aligned with naturalist’s level at the top of the hill. I documented half a dozen gall wasp species on this grand old tree, plus handful of other lifeforms. That wasn’t even a drop in the bucket.

The female on the look-out. She dropped down to the ground and then flew up to another perch with one of the local Northern Italian Wall Lizards. The first time I heard of lizards in NYC was when I saw a photo that was making the social rounds: this showed an American Kestrel carrying one…

Across the bay, a mural in Jersey City reaches up 20 stories. (Closer view & details here.)

The emergent crocuses got some action when it reached about 65 last weekend.

Under a pine, cause of death unknown.

Not Cruella de Ville or Susan Sontag.A Striped Skunk. Unfortunately not in good shape: canine distemper is riling the local population, just as they’re out and about mating. Bit a theme going here… this is a skull of a Common Raccoon. Rodent teeth in Great Horned Owl pellet.

She sees something down there. Something with a wing and bit of gristle: looks like some previous prey was cached and then retrieved. Not atypical behavior this time of year, when the female is eating like crazy to build up the energy to create eggs. Across the street was this male. Later both birds were…