Fieldnotes
-
Juneberry
The Juneberries (Amelanchier sp.) are nearly ripe, and that means the birds are starting to devour them.A Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum). Unexpected. Later I found four in a tree on the mezzanine that is Squib Park. Here’s one of these crested beauties:
-
Papery
The beginning of a Bald-faced Hornet (Dolichovespula maculata) nest. It would have gotten to be the size of a football (American) if the construction process hadn’t been interrupted.Fallen to the ground from a tree for some reason.You bet I approached it gingerly.
-
Red-Spotted Purple and Azure
In Sterling Forest State Park, a Red-spotted Purple. Limenitis arthemis has two rather different forms, the other, more northerly, one known as the White Admiral. The “Spring Azure Complex, Celastrina ladon and others,” is how the Kaufman Field Guide refers to these small, widespread, and common butterflies that are azure on the upperside of their…
-
Chipmunk
No mean forager and predator, the Eastern Chipmunk (Tamias striatus) will eat just about anything, from acorns and nuts to baby birds, from slugs to insects to carrion. Our local ones are missing out on the bonanza of the 17-year cicadas, which are concentrated in Staten Island. Central Park has seen a rapid rise of…
-
Magicicada Now
Saturday, in Doodletown, we found a few Magicicadas.And heard, in the distance, always the distance, the science-fiction-like thrum of them in the trees.On Sunday, we returned to Clove Lakes Park in Staten Island.Up on the hill and along Royal Oak Road, we found thousands and thousands and thousands of the husks.This is the bus shelter…
-
Hummingbird Nest
Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) nest throughout eastern North America, but in both the first (1988) and second (2008) Atlas of Breeding Birds in New York State, none were found to be breeding in NYC. (As the City Birder, who found this nest, notes: it’s certainly possible that previous nesting was just missed because of the…
-
Swallow Nesting
That mud-daubed Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica) nest is occupied.
-
Black-throated Blues
Before I began watching birds, I could identify a bare few of them: cardinals, robins, mourning doves, “sparrows,” things seen on bird feeders or everywhere. One day in the late 1990s when I lived on the top floor of a Park Slope rowhouse, I noticed a small dark bird moving quickly through the tree out…
-
Dragonfly Pond Watch
This morning I joined Brooklyn Bridge Park staffers and volunteers for an orientation about the Dragonfly Pond Watch they are participating in this season. As part of the Migratory Dragonfly Partnership, the Watch is gathering data about five of the sixteen known migratory dragonfly species in North America: Common Green Darner (Anax junius) Black Saddlebags…
-
Life Along The Delaware Bay
I didn’t make it to the beach to witness the annual rites of spring of the Horseshoe Crabs (Limulus polyphemus). But I did manage a virtual trip with this beautiful book. Life Along The Delaware: Cape May, Gateway to a Million Shorebirds by Niles, Burger, and Dey, with photography by van de Kam, was published…
Backyard and Beyond 