Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

Art Culture Politics

  • Street Tree Art

    On Union Street.

    mthew

  • BBG Purge

    This is what I know, having heard it through the Vitis vine: on Wednesday at 7pm, the Brooklyn Botanical Garden fired six members of its science department, wiping the department out. By e-mail. What a classy move! The Metropolitan Flora project has been suspended. The head of the community-building GreenBridge was axed. The herbarium has…

    mthew

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  • A Folly

    A folly, in the architectural sense, is a structure built as decoration to advertise the owner’s extravagance. A castle, say, to spruce up the grounds, or even, for the historically-bent, a “ruined” castle. For months now, the lawn between the Vale of Cashmere and Nellie’s Lawn, with its lovely fruit trees and native plantings, has…

    mthew

  • But wait, even more…

    At the Totnes Rare Breeds Farm, while I was waiting for a steam train I found this Old Dutch Capuchine Pigeon, a fancy breed once thought extinct.There were also a number of rehab owls at the Farm. This Tawny Owl (Strix aluco) is nine years old. This is the most common owl in Britain.And this…

    mthew

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  • PSA: Know Your Starlings

    And your Grackles. This is currently on exhibit at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Photo Wall. These not-grackles are in fact European Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). Mortimer! For Common Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula), see here. For Boat-tailed Grackle (Q.major), hang out at Jamaica Bay and you might get lucky. For Great-tailed Grackle (Q. mexicanus), try the Southwest US and…

    mthew

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  • Manitoga

    Making up the team “More is More,” my friend Sarah and I won second place in the Open House NY Modern Architecture and Design Scavenger Hunt earlier this spring. We claimed our prize last weekend: a guided tour of Manitoga, the Russell Wright Design Center, near Garrison, NY. I have to admit I’d never heard…

    mthew

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  • After the Storm

    They were still cleaning the shit of IdiotMooga out of the Nethermead late this afternoon.A strange legacy of this monstrous farce, now a bust two years in a row. These serving pans were sunk besides the Binnen Bridge, still full of what looked to be sausages on skewers, or “curated cured and bespoke meat” as…

    mthew

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  • Ranger Robin Says: Busted!

    The Googa Moola occupation of the park was cancelled today because of rain. Good riddance. This is the 2nd year this monstrous invasion of the Nethermead has been a bust. Three times is is not a charm: we’re going to fight any Googa Mooga III plans as hard as we can to take back the…

    mthew

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  • Hunkered Down

    A Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura), one of the three dozen or so species of birds that nest in Prospect Park. This one is hunkered down before the onslaught of the Googa Mooga bullshit that has taken over the heart of the park for a week and culminates in many full porta-potties this weekend. Farther away,…

    mthew

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  • Nethermead in Bondage

    The lockdown of the Nethermead is almost complete.Curious, how gated communities, the security state, and private takings of the public sphere all begin to look alike.According to the Brooklyn Paper, the Prospect Alliance is expected to make “at least $75,000” from the Great Googa Mooga Shit Pile. Or put another way, something less than $3…

    mthew