Backyard
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Interior Moth
An old frenemy returns to the apartment stairwell. Meal moth, Pyralis farinalis.
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Neighbors
A paper nest made by Bald-faced hornets, Dolichovespula maculata. Found a block down the street from the Back 40. It’s quite empty this time of year. Next year’s already mated females are somewhere nearby, tucked into over-wintering nooks, hoping to become queens of new colonies/nests. They will not reuse this nest. Here’s a these Bald-faced…
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Two Habitats
1.) A Rufus Hummingbird has been hanging out by the entrance to the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History. This species, Selasphorus rufus, is more generally found in the Northwest and West, so its continued presence in Manhattan since December has been cause for comment. The bird is…
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Tiny snail
Responding to my last post, snail maven Aydin Örstan thought the third of the terrestrial snails harboring on the marine snail shell in my backyard was Vallonia costata. If so — and it looks like it to this mollusk amateur — that would make for five different species of snails found in my concrete slab…
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Queen Mother Conch
Some time ago, I found a couple of queen conch shells, Strombus gigas, at Dead Horse Bay. Needless to say, this is not this tropical species typical habitat. But the landfill at Dead Horse Bay turns up the strangest things sometimes. Perhaps these were somebody’s souvenirs once. Anyway, a ruthless recycler, I put the shells…
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Back 40 Snail
A snail in the Back 40, hunkered down on the fence. Invasive Cepaea nemoralis, no stranger here. Showed up on Friday. Some mucous glue holds this onto the vertical surface, the animal withdrawn deep into the whorls of the shell.
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Back 40 Update
A better view of the pin oak sapling. The Staten Island native meadow mix bed. This is my biggest pot; like most everything in my backyard, it was found on the street and recycled. While moving some soil, I found a number of grubs who had buried into the earth for the winter:They buried themselves…
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Pin Oak
In June, I accidently uprooted a pin oak sapling in the Back 40. I was weeding wildly. Once I saw what I had done, I attempted to replant it. A couple of days later it was utterly overthrown, the work, I believe of a squirrel sapper. But then, in another pot, I noticed another. Both…
Backyard and Beyond 