Fieldnotes
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March Turtles Beat the Hares
The Lullwater still had ice on it, but Prospect Park Lake itself was completely free of the stuff. I saw about a dozen turtles sunning themselves yesterday afternoon. These animals spent the last half year or so down in the mud at the bottom of the Lake in brumation, a form of dormancy that isn’t…
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Brooklyn begins to bloom
On Clinton Street just now, incontrovertible spring. And in Prospect Park, several tree species are flowering. Most of these early springers make modest little flowers, emerging before leaves, which give the trees a fuzzy appearance. This Chinese, or hybrid, witch hazel, meanwhile, makes a showy, odd-ball flower. (The American witch hazels, H.virginiana are unique because…
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Virgin Gorda Tests
This is the test of a sea urchin. (Test, from the Latin testa, meaning shell.) It’s unusual to find one intact. This was amid the rocks at Little Leverick Bay. These are emerald nerites, and they’re just over 1/8” long, but that emerald color does stand out in the sand. The animal, a snail, is…
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Virgin Gorda Reptiles
Virgin Gorda’s dry landscape was full of lizards, which was reason for rejoicing. (I haven’t seen so many since I lived north of Naples, Italy, in the early 1970s. I’ve yet to spot one of NYC’s somewhat famous Italian wall lizards, known to live in the Bronx and to be kestrel food.) Most were 3-5…
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Virgin Gorda Beachcombing con’t
I was fascinated by the varieties of dead coral found on the beaches.This crab shell was perfectly preserved.In the water of Little Leverick Bay, I picked up a young queen conch, Strombus gigas. This is the animal that supplies conch fritter-makers from the Caribbean to Brooklyn; in some places, it’s over-harvested, and becoming rarer. We…
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Twilight JBWR
Yesterday was the first anniversary of this blog. It’s been a lot of fun and I hope you’ve enjoyed yourselves, too. I want to thank all my regular readers, first time visitors, random googlers and members of the Academy for coming along for the ride.The birds fly into the West Pond of Jamaica Bay Wildlife…
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Virgin Gorda Hermits
As we started our hike up to the top of Virgin Gorda Peak, the highest spot on the nine-mile-long island at 1395 feet, I noticed a nice shell on the path. Weird, I thought, considering our distance from the sea. I picked it up to find a hermit grab tightly tucked inside. I assumed it…
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Virgin Gorda Insects, Spiders
I don’t know the identity of these insects and spiders, but that doesn’t stop me — and I hope, you — from admiring them. If you’re familiar with any of these, let me know.
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Virgin Gorda Birds
I had the good fortune to spend last week on Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands. I’ve never been anywhere near the Antilles, Greater or Lesser, so I was quite unfamiliar with the flora and fauna. I’ll be posting shots and thoughts over the next week or so detailing explorations and discovers. In summary,…
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Mussel Power
I had no idea there are around 300 freshwater mussel species in North America, making our continent the richest in the world for these animals. Most of them occur in the mighty Mississippi Basin, particularly in the southeast, but we have a few in the metropolitan area as well. AMNH has a short course on…
Backyard and Beyond 