Fieldnotes
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New Point Comfort
What’s all this, then? At the limits of my telephoto. An observation platform at the tip of Mathews County, poking into the Chesapeake. And out there, a dead cetacean of some kind being recycled.Bald Eagles were nearby. Posted one is older, but not quite in full adult plumage.There was another juvenile on a nearby island.But it…
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Raptor Wednesday
As I glanced out the window one fine morning… There was a zoom here and a zoom there and a Cooper’s Hawk on patrol took a fairly longish break, for a Cooper’s Hawk, on a fire escape, to watch the local Starlings and Rock Doves and Sparrows recover from their fright. Not a bad shot…
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Pollarding
In Ye Olde Colonial Williamsburg, we found some curious trees.These are pollarded Sycamores. They’ve been pruned back in the canopy to promote denser branching and foliage, and to control height and reach (good for urban areas). The practice is at least two millennia old. The English brought it with them to the Virginia colony.Rather Entish…
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Prospect 150
This year marks the 150th anniversary of Prospect Park. Of course, the park was not finished when it opened, and it has remained a work-in-progress ever since. When I first started birding I lived two long blocks away from the 3rd Street entrance, where The Panthers watch over the road; like all the ornament of…
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Muckle Turkle
The Eastern Mud Turtle (Kinosternon subrubrum). This species is endangered here in New York State, where they are only found on the non-NYC parts of Long Island. (Habitat destruction, car wheels, the usual work of H. allegedly sapiens.) A fair number were in the Pitch and Tar Swamp at Jamestown Island, Virginia, where I took…
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Time Flies
It’s already been a week since we returned from Virginia, where the Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) were present in force. Nests had been claimed and birds were mating repeatedly. Check out the Route 301 bridge over the Potomac: as co-pilot, I spotted six nests near it (three were right over the road on sign towers, two…
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Turtles Galore
A foot bridge connects the mainland of Jamestown Island with the original settlement of Jamestowne, the first permanent English colony in North America. On a recent visit we barely made it across the old tar and pitch swamp. Because down below in the muck were four species of turtles: Snapper, Painted, Spotted, and Mud, that…
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Obolaria virginica
A gentian family member not easy to spot down in the leaf litter of early spring. This was poking up less than two inches. We found this one, and others, in an unused, unpaved driveway in Virginia. Appropriately enough, since both its species epithet and common name, Virginia Pennywort, reference the state. (Virginia Pennyleaf is…
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Raptor Wednesday
A scrum of noisy Starlings on the ground suddenly ceased their jabbering. I looked around the sky and the trees. Nothing out of the ordinary, but my raptor senses were activated. I was a few yards from the 9th Street/PPW entrance to Prospect Park. I don’t know if this female Kestrel (Falco sparverius) had spooked…
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Phoebe
Spring’s herald, the Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe). Saw lots in Green-Wood yesterday afternoon.
Backyard and Beyond 