mthew

At the Kestrel Communications Center… With the female out and about, I expect any youngsters in the nest are close to fledgling. * News on our awful, awful air, filled with smoke from Canadian wildfires. It’s akin to a thick fog at 8pm Tuesday; can’t see NJ, can barely see some of the barges on…

This was seen in Staatsburg. I haven’t seen one in NYC in quite a while, but they are definitely found in all five boroughs.

This Ichneumon wasp, perhaps Therion circumflexum, is trying to jab a caterpillar with one of her eggs. Wasps, both parasitic and social, take down a lot of caterpillars. Dark Paper Wasp laying eggs and provisioning the larvae to come. The eggs are the off-whiteish spheres. The food is more globular and clearer or even golden.…

It was raining caterpillars in Dutchess County this past week. You could hear the frass, the poop, dripping down from the leaves—I found more frass than ticks on the dog—while silk-suspended larvae dangled everywhere. A selection: (Shh, I’m a twig!) (This one had just been jabbed by a parasitic wasp.) (A twofer) All this meat…

This is the competed Mediterranean Potter Wasp nest I watching being built on May 24th, just before leaving town for a week. I didn’t get to see it completed then. When I got back to NYC this past Thursday, I returned to the scene of the pot-making. The nest, as you see, is now capped.…

Saturday night, dog-sitting. Take the dog out around 10pm. There’s a loud noise coming from the barely visible pond area down at the beginning of the driveway. First I’ve heard this sound. I record it. I listen to several frog songs online. Ah: Gray Treefrog/Hyla versicolor. The next day I can hear a few more…

Eastern/Gray Ratsnake Complex (Complex Pantherophis alleghaniensis) And another, rather bigger. But with a rather abbreviated tail.

Not one, but Two Red-shouldered Hawks soaring over Staatsburg. A Red-tailed Hawk in the woods out back. Picture through the screened window…

Almost the same place two days later, I looked back while walking the dog just before 6am… (And another sighting 45 minutes before we go to press this morning…)

Fragile? Well, that’s the common name of Ischnura posita, but they’re tough enough for most NYC habitats. Another Fragile Forktail, recently emerged. Eastern/Ischnura verticalis. Currently upstate, where I spotted an Aurora Damsel/Chromagrion conditum for the first time. More upstaters: Lancet Clubtail/Phanogomphus exilis Azure Bluet/Enallagma aspersum Skinning Bluet/Enallagma geminatum Springtime Darner/Basiaeschna janata A good perch is…