Fieldnotes
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Green-Wood
Walking through the unruly lawns of Green-Wood Cemetery this time of year stirs up grasshoppers, skippers, and moths, who scurry away from your feet in the grass. Sulphurs and Cabbage White butterflies flitter about, sometimes laddering up together in mating flights.An occasional giant butterfly, like this Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes), is seen.Something had nibbled on…
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Rock Slide
In May, a 10,000-ton piece of rock broke off the nearly vertical face of the Palisades in Alpine, NJ, and came crashing down. Yesterday evening, we cruised by in the Commodore’s boat. It obviously hasn’t taken long for some plant life to return. The Palisades were preserved into a park in 1900 after being deforested…
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Prospect Park
Fall migration has begun, and the park is filling again with birds on their way south. I had a morning full of American Redstarts around Lookout Hill. And there was of course much else to see. And hear. A few of them: Long shot across the Upper Pool. Several Wood ducks and a couple of…
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We’ve Got Crabs
The triangle of saltmarsh ot the southern end of Pier One at Brooklyn Bridge Park is an experiment. It’s cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora), which thrives even though it’s flooded by salt water at high tides. In flower now, it will send many seeds off on the currents, searching for mudflats. Key to its success, though, is…
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Habitat
Brooklyn Bridge Park’s horticulturalist Rebecca McMackin told me recently that she consciously works to create habitat. The proof is in the animals: Spot-winged glider (Pantala hymenaea), a new species for me. A reader of this blog, in private conversation, noted how the carrion beetle thing yesterday was a little queasy, but I personally find these…
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Burying Beetles
Burying beetles, also called sexton beetles, after the church employee traditionally in charge of the congregation’s corpses, need carrion. They eat dead mammals and birds, as well as the fly larvae that feed off carrion, but most importantly they bury it with their own eggs, giving their young something to eat. Pictured above are two…
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Form
The forms of nature are virtually infinite. These buds will soon resolve themselves into the saucer-sized flowers of Rose Mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos).And inside one of the blossoms already opened.
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No mud, no lotus
“Maggie Belle Slocum” lotus at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The title from Thich Nhat Hanh; the inspiration a postcard from the Deer Park Zen Monastery, given to me by Amy.
Backyard and Beyond 