Fieldnotes
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Lord of All He Surveys
Richard Upjohn’s Gothic-y gate to Green-Wood Cemetery. The Monk Parakeets have colonized it with their massive stick nest. Maybe it reminds them of the Andes? On a recent weekend, the birds were unusually quiet. I spotted half a dozen nearby.And up there with the lightning rod? Our old friend the American Kestrel (Falco sparverius). That…
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Dark
Our wet days and autumnal leaves are ideal for making for a lot of sidewalk prints. The Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum) leaf above the Pin Oak (Quercus palustris) leaf below are both particularly good examples.
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A Good Walk
A good walk in Prospect Park with Ken Chaya, who always adds immeasurably to my knowledge. This young Red Oak (Quercus rubra) was holding on to its youthfully large leaves.A particularly nice spread of “knees” of a Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum). It was once thought that these projections from the roots were pneumatophores, helping the…
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Sweetgum
A pod of the American Sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) on a recent bright day.These little nuggets came out the mouth-like openings of the pod, so I assumed they were the seeds. But I was wrong. Later, walking with tree-maven Ken Chaya, we knocked another pod. The winged seeds, or samaras, are seen here with more of…
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Feral
Heading towards ‘Sconset on the Milestone Road will take you past the Middle Moors, which are nicknamed “the Serengeti” on Nantucket.This nickname is probably the result of too many nature documentaries and the lesson that they usually teach: nature exists somewhere else and is exotic, something to sit back and enjoy from your living room…
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GBH
A Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) in Green-Wood. *** Today is “Giving Tuesday.” The vast range of options suggestions the desperate straits of our world, as does the fact that these entities have to go a-begging. (Philanthropy, a system in which the very rich set socio-political agendas while avoiding taxes, is the flip side of…
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Paper
All that remains of that Bald-faced Hornet (Dolichovespula maculata) nest on the memorial I photographed in September. While examining the amazing paper the wasps make to cover their comb, I found something elsenesting between the layers. Oops, sorry about that!
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The Whiteness of the Squirrel
This Gray Squirrel obviously isn’t very gray. It has been seen out and about in Prospect Park lately. Several “white” — or ivory — squirrels have been noted in the park and Park Slope in recent years, but they’re not all that common here.Like the black squirrels also seen, these are all variations on the…
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Cassin’s Kingbird & Co.
In what seems to be only the second New York state record, a Cassin’s Kingbird (Tyrannus vociferans) has been hanging out next to Floyd Bennett Field’s community garden. The species’ usual habitat is in the Southwest and Mexico, so it’s a long way from home. The temperature was in the 30s when I saw the…
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Oak
I’ve noticed these grapefruit/softball-sized growths on the side of this big old Red Oak (Quercus rubra) before. But on my most recent pass, there was a new one. Turns out to be a fungus.
Backyard and Beyond 