Fieldnotes
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Legion of Raccoons
Late afternoon in Green-Wood, a crusty old bandit walking like a old cat. Elsewhere: one of two young and a mother who were just crossing the street then they saw us. They climbed back up the tree they’d come down.The youngsters seemed very curious.
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The Real War
The great Bill McKibben is urging us to declare war on climate change, mobilizing like Americans did in the Second World War against the enemy. But is his enemy the right one? We know how stunningly disruptive climate change is, and how much faster it is all happening, and how quickly the bad news piles up. But…
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Maryland Monument Dasher
Two hundred and forty years ago today, the British and their Hessian swine-mercenaries walloped the still-loose conglomeration that was the Continental Army in Brooklyn. There’s a memorial in Prospect Park to the Maryland 400, troops who held the Old Stone House (the existing structure in J. J. Byrne Park is a recreation) down in the…
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Megachile on Asclepias
Leaf-cutter bee on Butterfly Weed. You can’t tell this when they’re in the air, or, frankly, very easily when they’re still, but bees have four wings (flies have two). In this photo, however, you can just see the smaller hindwing underneath the forewing on the right side here.
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Red-Tailed Hawk Stalking
A young Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) patrolling the 5th Avenue entrance of Green-Wood. I would hazard to guess that it is wondering where that Eastern Grey Squirrel went.
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Blue Dasher, White Tail
You have to get pretty close to see the white face on one of NYC’s most common dragonflies, the Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis). This is a male; as he gets older, his blue abdomen will get more powdery or chalkier looking. Such pruinescence, as it’s called, is caused by wax exuded from the animals’ cuticle.…
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Snapper
Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina), the smaller of two seen this weekend. Note the spotless shell. Compare with another snap seen two years ago in the Discovery Center pond. Much more growth on the shell of that younger specimen. The huge beastie I’ve seen in Prospect Park’s watercourse a few times over the years has also…
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Traces of the Ice Age
Don’t you just love these? These grooves are found along the path in the forest of the NYBG, and time and generations of feet have worn them down slightly. They’re glacial striations, gouged out by the rubble on the bottom the ice as it scraped across the hard surface rock. These can be found in…
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Clearwings
Another critter hard to pin down. This is a Snowberry Clearwing Moth (Hemaris diffinis), named after one of its host plants and, more obviously, those see-through parts of the wings. This was moving quickly between honeysuckle blossoms, another of its caterpillar hosts, and proving hard to capture in the lens. Note that it mimics a…
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It’s Coming
Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) creeping into a subway station, an elevated subway station: Bedford Park 4 train in the Bronx. The little reddish rootlets help the aerial vine form of this crafty plant grab hold of a foundation, like a tree, or a sluggish commuter.
Backyard and Beyond 