Fieldnotes
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Flickering
If you’re going to hide in the ornamental cherry, don’t be screeching. But then, nobody ever accused the Northern Flickers (Colaptes auratus) of being subtle, with their loud calls, white rumps, and flickering yellow underwings (red in the West). Not to mention this palate of plumage…
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LBJs & CFWs
Or, in birding parlance, the “little brown jobs” and “confusing fall warblers.” The little brown jobs aren’t necessarily all that brown once you get a good look at them, but they are small and flighty. The confusing fall warblers are now in their regular plumage, not their distinctive spring breeding feathers. These are not the…
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Nyssa Shine
These shiny red leaves are Nyssa sylvatica, Black Tupelo or Black Gum. One of the great fall color trees. Have you been bathing in fall colors?
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Newtown Creek
This is the design on the back of Newtown Creek Alliance business cards. What the…? Ah, of course. It’s the creek, coming off the East River to divide Queens, on top and to the right, and Brooklyn. The Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint is essentially a peninsula. To be more specific, it was a marshy creek,…
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Butorides virescens
An inside source tells me that there was indeed a Green Heron nest in Green-Wood this season.Behold a juvenile; there are at least two. This one caught two fish as it walked around the edge of the pond towards me. These pics are from earlier this month. They will fly south any… minute now. After…
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Raptor Wednesday
On Saturday, two passes through Green-Wood Cemetery on either side of brunch came up zilch on the raptor count, so Sunday I went back in amidst the nuthatches, kinglets, and warblers. Within a ten-minute period, I’d spotted a Sharp-shinned Hawk, two Red-tailed Hawks, a Merlin, and then an American Kestrel: now, that’s more like it!…
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Picnic, Lightning
Junk food lives beyond the jaws.God-damned balloons kill and maim animals. Even good environmentalists I know continue to buy these things for their kids. Stop it, already. Your kids don’t want to choke turtles and strangle birds to death, do they?
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Woodchuck
Marmota monax keeps an eye on you.Yet another den! Do they keep moving around? This general area has been the home of at least one for a while, but I think this particular den is newish.Facing the sinking sun of another day.
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Variegated
A Variegated Fritillary (Euptoieta claudia) yesterday in the Buddleia pollinator-magnet at Green-Wood. First time I’ve seen this species here in NYC, although I’d seen one before in Arizona. They’re a southern species, uncommon here, but have been known to get up to Canada.
Backyard and Beyond 