Fieldnotes
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Field Trip: Nantucket
Harbor seals on the Jetties, Nantucket Harbor. I went up to Nantucket, MA, last week, taking a bus up to Hyannis and then the “slow boat,” the ferry, across the Sound. For a couple of years now, I’ve noticed osprey over Hyannis harbor and wondered where they nest. On the return trip, this time on…
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Natural Object: Cedar-Apple Rust
Many of us look to the stars hoping for new discoveries. Obviously, there’s plenty to find out there. But some people seem to think everything has already been done right down here. Ha! Last week I was on Nantucket Island, off the coast of Massachusetts. Thirty miles at sea, it’s a damp and very windy…
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Field Trip: Moths, Spider
From inside the house. And running along the ground. There actually seem to be a lot of spiders running on the ground up there.
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Natural Object: Seeds
Mighty oaks from little acorns grow, but you know that. And the Giant sequoia, Sequoiadendron giganteum, of inland California — as distinct from the coastal redwoods, Sequoia sempervirens — comes from these little things. By volume, these Giants are the largest living thing on the planet. A superlative beast by any standard, in fact: can…
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Snail Tales, part III
For a change of pace, a fresh water gastropod, which means I did not find these in the Back 40. The species is a Brooklyn resident, however: I took this photo at the Valley Water in Green-Wood. I think the snail is Viviparus malleatus, the Chinese mystery snail, a.k.a. the Japanese trapdoor snail. (Like many…
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Birding Prospect
As I won’t be getting to Prospect Park for the next several days, I decided I needed an early April census of birds to compare the coming weeks to. Yesterday, I entered the Park at 9th Street and walked down to the Pools and through the Ravine and across the Midwood and the Vale and…
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In Green-Wood
In Green-Wood, a couple of frogs, and many, many tadpoles. Plump tadpoles.
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Field Notes: Four Sparrow Marsh
Birding, or any other natural history pursuit, depends upon the kindness of strangers and friends. We all learn from each other. This in prelude to saying I have no anxiety of influence about this: I followed the lead of the City Birder and went to Four Sparrow Marsh yesterday. It was my first time there.…
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Scolopax minor
It was an unusually cold Saturday night, but damn it, it was spring, and the timberdoodles were in town. We went out to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge to listen for them. The American woodcock, Scolopax minor, as it is more formally known, is a shorebird that isn’t. It is related to the sandpipers, and looks…
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Field Notes: In Prospect (plus haiku)
Willow, weep. Grackle, advance. Cocoon, open…. This is somewhat similar to the one I saw last week, but attached to a lamp post instead of suspended from a twig. Also, it’s darker. This one is just as big, though, just over an inch long, half or more wide. A big fat moth? What do you…
Backyard and Beyond 