Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

Fieldnotes

  • Natural Object: Poppy

    Sweet dreams are made of this — well, they might be if this was that kind — a poppy seed capsule/pod that managed to survive the winter in the garden of friends in Windsor Terrace. Meanwhile, let’s go walking with Thomas De Quincey: Some of these rambles led me to great distances; for an opium-eater…

    mthew

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  • Uneven Development

    Forsythia blooming: the microclimate of a ESE-facing wall on Sydney Place intensifies the sun. Meanwhile, in Prospect Park:The trees bid their time.

    mthew

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  • Basic beach

    I live on an island. It’s a rather lengthy island, and so, unimaginatively, it’s been called “Long Island” for several centuries now. I’m on its far western end, in the once-upon-a-time city and now borough of Brooklyn, which, uh, doesn’t really think of itself as being a part of “Lon Guyland.” The reasons for this…

    mthew

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  • Early Spring Subtleties

    Some tree species aren’t very showy with their flowers. They aren’t out to attract animals because they’re wind-pollinated; and they aren’t out to seduce gardeners with luscious blooms. So their beauty is subtle, but undeniable. This is some kind of elm species, near Prospect Park Lake.I was away for a week, and while I was,…

    mthew

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  • Winkles

    Four shells collected at Cape Anne, Massachusetts. The three clustered around the illustration are Common European Periwinkles, Littorina littorea. This winkle, much savored by Old World palates, was first recorded in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1840, perhaps arriving via rock ballast in ships. Another source says they may have arrived much earlier, upon…

    mthew

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  • Ribbed Mussels

    The Atlantic ribbed mussel, Geukensia demissa, at low tide at Calvert Vaux Park. Unlike the more famous (because delicious) blue mussel, Mytilus edulis, the ribbed mussel, which is found up and down the East Coast, prefers brackish waters. They are a keystone species for salt marsh habitat and vital to Jamaica Bay. Establishing beds within…

    mthew

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  • Calvert Vaux Park

    Calvert Vaux was born in London (the family name rhymes with “fox”), immigrated to America, worked with Andrew Jackson Dowling, the founding father of American landscape architecture, and published Villas and Cottages, a landmark of American neo-Gothic design. Vaux’s great claim to fame, however, is teaming up with Frederick Law Olmsted to work on both…

    mthew

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  • Brooklyn Stalactites

    Here at Backyard and Beyond, we spare no wonder for our natural and unnatural world. In the Bergen St. F/G subway station in Brooklyn, these stalactites descend from both platforms. They’re classic soda straw formations, hollow through the center. They are also, obviously, not exactly like the ones you’d find in a cave. (Frankly, you…

    mthew

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  • First Bees of 2011

    I’ve seen my first bees of the year. I was in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where honey bees were working the crocuses: and the pollen-saturated Rose-Gold Pussy Willow:No other species of bees were seen, but the bumblebees should be out and about soon. There were a few flies, including this:A drone fly, Eristalis tenax. It…

    mthew

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  • Winter is for waterfowl

    Water, water, everywhere, and ducks amuck on much of it. Winter officially departs in just a little over a week (“here’s your hat/what’s your hurry?”), which means that many of the ducks found within the New York City area will shortly be heading north for their breeding grounds. Like Rick in Casablanca, they came here…

    mthew

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