Fieldnotes
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The light in your eyes
I wonder who it was who painted the first portrait with that little bit of white in the eyes signifying reflection? You can wander a museum for hours fixated on these daubs of paint, geometries suggestive of where the subject posed — rectangular for natural light through a window, for instance — which suddenly give…
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Coastal Brooklyn, Part I
My closest-ever encounter with a Red-throated Loon (Gavia stellata). In the calm waters of Erie Basin in Red Hook. The bird’s upturned bill and smaller size helps to distinguish this species from the Common Loon (G. immer), which in roiling winter waters at silhouette distance is still a challenge. The “red-throat” is part of breeding…
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Bagged
On a young Baldcypress in a still-industrial stretch of Plymouth Street: several of these bag worm cocoons. These are the egg cases of a Psychidae family moth. From a distance they look like cones or some other part of the tree itself. Small twigs are glued onto the surprisingly, or, actually, not so surprisingly, tough…
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What a day!
Croton Point Park: as the train pulled in, not a single Bald Eagle was visible in the trees fronting the bay. Uh-oh. I’d promised eagles to the folks I’d dragged up to celebrate my birthday. The absence of ice seemed to be telling; the birds were heading back upriver. When I was there at the…
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Wink
This male Gadwell (Anas strepera) flashes his nictating membrane, or third eyelid. Many birds have these to clean and protect the eyes. They are semi-transparent, evidently, and some diving birds (this one’s a dabbler) have slitted ones for underwater work.
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Peregrines
Wednesday at dusk: Peregrines (Falco peregrinus) on the steeple.Thursday morning, the fifth straight day of seeing Peregrines — either here in Brooklyn or across the East River at 55 Water St. This picture is from two blocks away. Gamaliel King’s steeple is a challenge to shoot between the trees, row houses… And of course the…
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Magic Mushroom
The “vivid” feature of the camera brings out the lurid in this large old shelf-like polypore.Fungus is wild.
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Red-breasted
Red-breasted Mergansers (Mergus serrator) can be spotted from both sides of the East River now. They will be heading north to breed soon. (I may be optimistic with that “soon.”) This is a male. Of our three merganser species, this one likes salt water the best.
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Borough, Sweet Borough
Not what most out-of-towners think of when they think of Brooklyn. Nor what most in-the-towners think of, either, for that matter. But it all depends on where and how you look. Winter, 2014. The first real winter in a long, long time.
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Snow Day
The other day, the news was this was, so far, the 9th snowiest winter in NYC. (We’re number nine, we’re number nine!) I have to admit most of it has fallen while I’ve been inside. But yesterday I took a walk thinking I would avoid the snow and ended up walking amidst it. Except for…
Backyard and Beyond 