Fieldnotes
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Barn Swallow Nest
Underneath a bridge in Prospect Park, little mud pellets mark the beginning of a Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica) nest. Interestingly, the swallows seem to be using an old Organpipe Mud Dauber wasp nest as a brace or support.Five days later, the cup-like nest is coming along. A few bits of twig or the like seem…
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Frog Weather
An enormous Bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana) in the Lullwater.Nonchalant as a dozen people file by five feet away.
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Black-Crowned Night Heron
Nycticorax nycticorax is the most-common heron in the NYC area. It is also the most wide-spread of herons on the planet, being found on five continents. This one was very close to me, and everybody else, in Prospect Park recently, and seemed oblivious to all of us gawkers. As their common name suggests, they do…
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Assume the Position
Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s… actually, yes, it is a bird, a small darting thing high high high up in leafy elm. Perhaps a flame-throated Blackburnian, a sky-bringing Cerulean, a red-faced Cape May. Warbler season is upon us, and, even though, as of this writing (Sunday evening), the weather is particularly…
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Sassy
Sassafras, as you may know, is one of those unusual native trees that has variable leaf shapes. Three leaf types show up on the same tree: unlobed, single lobed, or double-lobed. These Sassafras albidum at Brooklyn Bridge Park all seem to leaf-out initially with the longish oval unlobed leaves, the lobed mitteny ones coming with…
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The Future
The Native Flora Garden is expanding at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Most of the one-acre extension, which effectively doubles the size of the NFG, can be seen here from a distance. The new space will include pine barrens and coastal plain habitats.Here’s a peek through the fencing of the pine barrens habitat to come. Pitch…
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Sidewalk Kill
It gets graphic at the end…. I was just minding my own business walking down the grandly named Brooklyn Bridge Boulevard towards Atlantic Avenue, across from the Brooklyn Pokey/Detention Complex. I kept one eye on the sky, because I am half an optimist, and one eye on the sidewalk, because I am the other half…
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International Migratory Bird Day 5-11
Saturday, May 11, is International Migratory Bird Day. The title speaks for itself, I think. It’s a celebration of the billions of birds that migrate from the south to the north this time of year, and an educational opportunity to note the hazards of these fraught migrations. IMBD is traditionally a time for birdathons, which…
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Periodical
“The air here is filled with their din. They come out of the ground at first in an imperfect state, and crawling up the shrubs and plants the perfect insects burst out through the back…. Their din is heard by those who sail along the shore from the distant woods. Phar-r-r-oh. Phar-r-oh.” ~ Henry David…
Backyard and Beyond 