Fieldnotes
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Bombus Away
After a lingering slog of humidity, things have gotten cooler and drier here in the Borough of Kings. Today’s high is forecast to be 69, not the most optimal for insects. Their season is passing. I saw this bumblebee yesterday working a chicory, of the few flowering plants in Sunset Park now. The bumble was…
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Red Squirrel Alert!
A Eurasian Red Squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) scoping out the scene in Copenhagen’s Assistens Kirkegard (cemetery), where Søren Kierkegaard is buried. There were two; they were pretty camera shy. This squirrel species is wide-spread across Eurasia, but is suffering in the UK from a disease introduced by imported Gray Squirrels from North America. Declines have also…
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Raptor Wednesday at the Movies
The first sight of a church yard in Copenhagen triggered a memory that bloomed in Sweden. I’d seen such graveyards before: the gravel plots fenced in by foot-high hedges rigorously trimmed, the raked patterns in the somber gray sand. Very orderly, compact, clean. It was all in the 1999 Swedish film Falkens öga/Kestrel’s Eye, about…
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Muddy Duck
Ah, the White-breasted… wait a minute?Who the devil is this? These large, distinctive ducks were spotted all over Copenhagen.Took me a minute to figure out what I was looking at, later confirmed by our bird guide in Sweden. What do you think?
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So Many Monarchs
Have you noticed what a good year it is for Monarch Butterflies? There have been lots of positive reports from around the city and further afield about the large numbers of Danaus plexippus being seen. On Saturday, I walked from Sunset Park to Park Slope and back again to pick up some baked goods. I…
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More
You can, I think, get most of these either by shape or name. Ek, alm, ask, are so close, and hassel…The famous escargot, Helix pomatia. Also known as Roman, Burgundy, or simply edible snail. Or, when in the Rome of the north, Snäckor. Introduced, running rampant in a slick way.Yeah, stickmygga.Damn it! Found on a…
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Birds in Hand IV
A juvenile male Bearded Reedling (Panurus biarmicus), known as skäggmes to the locals, at the Flommen banding station.The adult males have black markings down the sides of their face, the “beard,” rather more like a full mustache. This species has also been called Bearded Parrotbill and Bearded Tit. It seems to be in its own…
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Scandonata
So they have the same meadow hawk problem over there. These Sympetrum dragonflies are hard to ID in camera. Looks like S. vulgatum or S. striolatum are the options. Found around the moat of the Kastellet in Copenhagen, where the word for them is Hedelibel, or darter. The following mating damselflies were spotted in the…
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Calling Names
Robert Macfarlane’s essay on nature and children, naming and literature, got me thinking about the first big book I read myself. It was Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, which is, of course, three books. I was ten-ish, a late bloomer. As it happens, a new book called Flora of Middle Earth also delves into the name…
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Scandinavian Miscellanea
A rose gall.The Black Raven, a bit redundant. Slow down, there are cats here. Pike, innit?Four dragon tails curl into the spire at the old stock exchange in Copenhagen. Another Danish dragon.Another mythological Dane, Den Lille Havfrue. She was splashed with red paint earlier this year to protest whale and dolphin killing by Faroe islanders.…
Backyard and Beyond 