Fieldnotes
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Local Warblers
Spotting an American Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla) male at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge recently was a surprise. There was actually another nearby, too. The bird-list put out by the NPS says they are “probable nesters” there; the state breeding survey, more recent, has them confirmed. This was news to me. Nice to see a “revival” of migration’s…
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C-9s Return to Brooklyn
The New York State insect is the Nine-spotted Ladybug, also known as C-9 (Coccinella novemnotata). This was once one of the most common species of ladybug found on agricultural fields across North America. No more. I’ve still never seen an adult. In fact, nobody could find any in New York for more than two decades…
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Weather Vaned
Red-tails, Red-tails, everywhere you look. Yesterday, we saw one on a streetlight surveying the scene on the Belt Parkway. Another was atop the FDNY tower next to the BBG every time we looked up there over the course of nearly three hours in the wedding venue. And, as we come up Flatbush Avenue towards the…
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P. domesticus
Most overhanging stoplights in the city are supported by these t-shaped structures, and most seem to have a House Sparrow nest on each end. (And everybody knows it: we once watched a crow poking its bill into a couple of them, to see if there was anything to eat inside.) Passer domesticus: the House Sparrow’s…
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Oystercatchers
An adult American Oystercatcher (Haematopus palliatus) sticks out of the landscape like a sore bill. Sand-colored young American Oystercatchers, however, are not so easy to see or photograph. But they, or their parents, or all of them combined, sure do make a lot of noise.
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That Yellow Crown
Let’s get a little closer, shall we…?There is definitely some yellow in the Yellow-Crowned Night Heron’s crown.We’d see it better if the sun wasn’t so bright. Because I could hardly have been closer: I was in a blind, less than ten feet from the bird.
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Pet-trade Refugee
One of the many surplus Red-eared Sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans) dumped into local waterways. Idiots buy them and tire of them and let them loose. The red “ear” is actually just a mark; on this specimen it’s rather pale; sometimes it doesn’t show at all. I once counted 70 RESs, which are native to the southeast…
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Solstice
The sun will rise to its highest point in the sky today here in the northern hemisphere, meaning you will cast your shortest shadow of the year. Look at those miniature suns at the edge of the path… Closer: Opuntia humifusa, Prickly Pear Cactus, now blooming. This is the only native cactus in our part of the…
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Backyard and Beyond 