Fieldnotes
-
Odonata Days
Well, I’ve finally seen a damselfly this year. Yesterday, I saw exactly two at the Sylvan Water in Green-Wood. I didn’t have my camera with me, but I did find something to share with you. This is an exuvia, the shed husk of the underwater larval stage of damsel- and dragonflies. This one is a…
-
Behold the Imago!
A flesh fly of the genus Sarcophagi. You don’t particularly want to see the larval (stage, part, being) of this insect, since as their name suggests they are carrion-eating maggots. On the other hand, you probably don’t want to see carrion slowly decomposing by bacteria and the weather alone; that would take much too long:…
-
Nests
Green Heron, evidently abandoned. A rather loose collection, looking precarious, like a Mourning Dove’s, but larger and twiggier.Red-winged Blackbird. Lots of grassy-sedgy material in these whirling constructions.Fierce defenders of their breeding areas, RWBBs will go after anything that gets in their space, including much bigger birds like Red-tailed Hawks. As I approached this lake, one…
-
Hackberry
A hackberry drupe. Can we call it a “hack”? It is surprisingly smooth at this stage of unripeness, and extremely difficult to photograph. This is through a 10x loupe. Other names for the tree include nettletree, sugarberry, and beaverwood, but why hackberry? One source says the Scottish “hagberry,” for a Eurasian bird cherry (Prunus padus),…
-
Papilio glaucus
Enjoy these images of an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail — which spent a good deal of time drinking (?) out of the surprisingly fecund cracks between the bricks in Prospect Park — as I slip out this morning from behind the Backyard and Beyond desk to get married.“Arrival is the culmination of the sequence of events,…
-
Nycticorax nycticorax
The cosmopolitan Black-crowned Night Heron.That binomial means “night crow night crow,” named for the squawking sound they make at night, which was supposed to remind someone of a corvid.But they do some good work in the day, too. Although you’ll often finding them like these two, waiting for the darkness.A juvenile.
-
150 for 150
An informal group of us are getting together today for a micro-mini bioblitz in Prospect Park. We’re going to see how long it takes us to identify 150 species — including plants, fungi, insects, reptiles & amphibiansbirds, & mammals — in honor of the park’s 150 years of vital importance to the non-human. (Samples for…
-
Large Piece of Turf
Homage to Dürer. * A lesson of Jeremy Corbyn’s near victory against the dead center of his own party and the vicious opposition of the Murdochian sewer of Britmedia? Don’t let the bastards get you down.
-
Let’s Hear It For Humility
“Area Closed/Protected Natural Area.” Just being a fan of the natural world’s beauties doesn’t mean you’re a friend of nature. Some people think their photography or their bird lists are more important than anything else. But no, they aren’t, not by a long shot. Primary is the care, caution, and respect we pay to the…
-
Ladybugs
The first four photographs were all from on the same patch of milkweed (Ascelpias syriaca), not yet in bloom but already festooned with aphids.Multicolored Asian, Harmonia axyridis. There were several. Checkerspot, Propylea quatuordecimpunctata. The only one noticed. Two-spotted, Adalia bipunctata. Counted four. Getting busy and laying eggs. This is one of two egg clusters on…
Backyard and Beyond 