Fieldnotes
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Lizards!
Something I was not aware of. Didn’t think we had any lizards at all up here in New York, except for the introduced Italian Wall Lizards. But there are actually four species in the state, three natives and the Italian, which I’ve seen in Queens. Both the Five-lined Skink and the Eastern Fence Lizard are…
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Marine Park Reborn
In May of 2011, I got to go behind the scenes at the restoration project at Marine Park, courtesy of NYC Wildflower Week. Two weeks ago, the long-closed path was opened to the public. Things have changed quite a bit since I was last there.Ladies and gentlemen, we have salt marsh.And meadow. Not lawn, but…
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Wrack, Canis, Kestrel
From the Brooklyn Bridge, the wrackline is visible on the lawn in Empire Fulton Ferry section of Brooklyn Bridge Park. It’s all over but the clean up in my part of Brooklyn, but Lower Manhattan on the other side of the bridge is still dark.In DUMBO, one of the moss-painted animals left over from the…
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Trick or Treat Fungus Among Us
Inexplicably, there will be few fungus costumes today, just as in Halloweens past. And that’s a shame. Fascinating, ubiquitous, vitally important in the plant’s interconnected systems, fungi are a high-level rank of life, a kingdom, up there with plants, animals, and bacteria. It’s important to remember that fungi are not plants, or even much like…
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Red Hook
The Weeping Willow at Van Brunt and King St., an old friend, has come down in the storm. The Red Hook neighborhood, an island at high tide during colonial times, was quite inundated last night and looks miserable today, but not crushed like the Jersey shore or the burned out neighborhoods on the Rockaway peninsula.…
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Calm
Pier One about an hour before high tide. I was somewhat amused to hear someone on the radio say that “high tide would come again.” Yes, it will, roughly every twelve hours, until the moon drifts further away. Meanwhile, the salt marsh perseveres. Squally out there. Very little damage in my neighborhood; largest trees fine,…
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Safe and Sound
Hurricane Sandy gets in your eye. Funky convergence of north-bound hurricane, feeding off hotter than usual ocean (Atlantic temps at 2nd highest record), and south-dipping jet stream pouring in a cold front, plus a full-moon-(last night)-jacked storm surge. The storm is now dumping snow in places. Radical weather aligns/precedes/accompanies radical climate change. Reports of lots…
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High Tide
This was high tide at Brooklyn Bridge Park this morning around 9. This is a 3-foot surge; it is forecast to be nearly double that at the next high tide (9:17 p.m at Brooklyn Bridge). But don’t forget the wind, pushing it even further. The saltmarsh in the right corner is underwater. Salt marshes are…
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Gall-ish
Plenty of oaks yet to turn color in the Hudson Highlands, 60 miles north of Brooklyn. And where there are oaks, there are galls. Here’s one I came across up there recently:Not sure what species is inside here. To re-cap, galls are formed by the interaction of animal and plant. Irritated by wasp, mite, aphid,…
Backyard and Beyond 