Fieldnotes
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Last Woodcock
Orange-bellied American Woodcock taken by Red-tailed Hawk. Dramatic, but not the last word. The other night, we heard a few Woodcocks, who have some great alternative names (bog snipe, bog sucker, timberdoodle, Labrador twister), at Floyd Bennett Field. The males were calling, then flying into the air twittering and burbling to impress potential mates. The…
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More Woodcock
Positioned high and back, these eyes can see threats from behind and above. We tread very carefully and left it as it was in that snow hole.Shhh. * Amazing! The Trumpidiot in charge of the Department of HHS, who was, you will recall, approved by the Republicans even in the face of some insider trading,…
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NOGO-A-GoGo
There’s a system of four letter codes birding banders/ringers use to identify bird species. It’s usually made up of the first two letters of the bird’s common name, which is frequently two words long. Thus NOrthern GOshawk is NOGO. Just what you needed, right? Three things to call ’em: a common name, a scientific binomial…
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Woodcock Madness
A few of the nine American Woodcock I saw on Thursday in Prospect Park. Or, in this one’s case:Outside the park. On Vanderbilt St. in Windsor Terrace. I herded this one off the street. A stalking cat gave me the side-eye for doing so.The bird landed in the only patch of open ground around. But then the…
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Scolopax minor
The first of three American Woodcocks seen on the Brooklyn Bird Club’s Woodcock walk in Green-Wood last weekend.Same bird from the other side. A dozen people walk by stealthily…. The sun came out. But it’s at dusk that these non-shore shorebirds do their magic. The males begin to vocalize repeatedly with a peent/beent call. Then…
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Tufted
I’ve never had such an obliging Tufted Titmouse before. The binomial, Baeolophus bicolor, translates as small crest of two colors. More fun with names on this MSU page. * Let’s pause today, in light of yet another court staying the latest edition of Trump’s religious bigotry, to remember a despised alien “race” that professed a…
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Raptor Wednesday
Sometimes all you get is the general shape of the critter. The big-headed American Kestrel (Falco sparverius), for instance. Other times, you take your best shot. I thought this might be a Kestrel, too. But it sure was spending a lot of time up there, a behavioral characteristic I haven’t seen so much with Kestrels.…
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Chippy
The forecast is calling for a foot of snow. Quite a rollercoaster of weather we’ve been having. Last week, it was up 60 degrees F. The Chipmunks (Tamias striatus) were busy in the sunshine. Don’t let the cuteness fool you: these are pretty effective predators as well as gatherers. They will definitely raid bird nests,…
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Sprung
Tossing their pollen into the air… Scott Pruitt, the oil and gas industry operative given the hammer to destroy our environmental protections, claims that physics and chemistry are bunk. (Such a good lesson for students, but, then, the person put in charge of education doesn’t even know what education is; she thinks it’s a fundamentalist-infected…
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Hope is a Thing With Feathers?
Do Baltimore Orioles hope to find the material necessary to build their woven nests? I think not. They’d probably be extinct if they did. Instead they do: they seek out dried grasses and rushes and other fibers. In this world, they also find string, rope, ribbon, and bits of this and that to be useful.…
Backyard and Beyond 