Fieldnotes

A female Red-breasted Merganser in shallow water eyeballing the undersea. She wasn’t the only one.

White-winged Scoter. Long-tailed Duck (male). Long-tailed Duck (female), a bit further out. Common Eider (young male). Red-breasted Merganser (male). Red-breasted Merganser (female). Gadwall (duck and drake).

Cooper’s. American Kestrel. Cooper’s. Merlin. Same Merlin from the back. Those red zig-zag twigs? A linden. More Cooper’s. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Brooklyn, NY, USA, has damn good raptors. As usual, all the above sightings, from this January, were within a mile or two of home. That first Cooper’s was…

A woodsy gargoyle … An allee of beeches always has a lot of detail. Pachydermal detail…

Woodpeckers have unusually stiff tail feathers. A broken branch of a wizened paper birch. I wonder if the bird knows to follow the mushrooms to the weakest wood? Seems a good bet. Remind me to take another look soon to see if this hole gets bigger.

My first good look at a Common Raven this year, the sixth year I’ve been watching them here in Brooklyn. Sure, I hear them occasionally, and see them from a distance, but this was relatively close. This one landed with some food high up in a tree. The bird’s feathers are ready for molt! The…

Last May, this little hillock was abuzz with cellophane bees. Their dirt mound nests were all over the place, and the bees themselves were thick in the air. The next generation is in here now. Four more months to go! Took these photos yesterday, just before the inauguration. Not far away was a Persian ironwood…

Red-tailed Hawk in tuliptree. Cooper’s Hawk coming in. The Cooper’s kept a sharp eye on the larger hawk. The latter flew away and was followed by the Coop to another tuliptree some 75 yards away. Then they returned back to the original tuliptree, so as I was making my way thataway they passed me by…

These two Dark-eyed Juncos were underneath a hickory tree that was absolutely littered with pieces of nut. A couple of Black-capped Chickadees were doing the same. Elsewhere: a similar hickory smorgasbord. I supposed squirrels make these messes. There’s still a lot of nut meat here. Not sure what this one is working on. Wing of…