Fieldnotes
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Two Nests
Why any House Sparrow would want to build a nest in a tree instead of the innumerable cross-bars of stop lights, I don’t know. But there you go. Passer domesticus nests are big affairs, considering the size of the birds, but they are usually inside a human-made structure, so we don’t see the weaver-y details.…
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Cardinal Haiku
What is there to eat Early spring, before the seeds? Flowers, just flowers.
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Eastern Phoebe
One of spring’s earliest arrivals, Sayornis phoebe have been around for a few weeks already. They generally perch over meadows and water bodies, making loopy forays into the air to hunt for insects. Perched, they wag their tails as if they know something about the nutritional value of insects. Sometimes you may be graced with them saying their name, which…
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Fabulous
Ohara Donshu – Blind Men Appraising an Elephant, early 19th century. Ink and colors on paper, Overall: 92 x 46 1/2 in. (233.7 x 118.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Asian Art Council, Mr. and Mrs. Willard G. Clark, Georgia and Michael de Havenon, Mr. and Mrs. Greg Fitz-Gerald, Dr. and Mrs. George Liberman,…
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Flickermania
Spring and fall, migration usually brings us a few days with large numbers of Northern Flickers (Colaptes auratus) passing through. This is the only woodpecker around here you will regularly see foraging on the ground. You can scare up a dozen here, a dozen there, and see them flying hither and yon through Brooklyn’s green…
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Snipers
It’s that time of year when you can not be sure what will drop out of the sky. I mean this quite literally, because it’s migration season and birds of many feathers are streaming northward, in our case along the Atlantic flyway. Yesterday, for instance, we spotted a Wilson’s Snipe in Green-Wood Cemetery on a…
Backyard and Beyond 