Fieldnotes
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Goldfinch and Pods
A detail from a feeding frenzy. Half a dozen sweetgum trees, with pods all over the ground and road they bordered. Many of the pods were still hanging from the trees, too. They attracted several dozen American Goldfinches, on the ground and acrobatically hanging from the pods overhead. I don’t recall ever seeing so many…
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Mammal Monday
In which we attempt to glide your way into the working week with something mammiferous. Twice I passed this hole-in-the-bole recently and the Blue Jays were screaming and the Red-breasted Nuthatches were wailing and one or two jays actually got on the lip of the hole and peeked in. “By Jove, there’s something in there,…
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Weekend Update
Two and a half hours in Green-Wood this morning, and not a single raptor sighting. That’s unusual for a winter day. As I was walking home, a block away from the southern edge of the cemetery, I heard a Raven croaking. I turned to see it heading towards Green-Wood. Because I’d turned around, I saw…
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Surprising Teal
I couldn’t determine what this was from a distance, where it was dwarfed by a herd of Canada Geese.Even close by, I was running through the names of the ducks in a bird ID app.That moire pattern! The stripe! That head!Of course, “wigeon” and “gadwall,” among others, don’t come up if you type in “duck”….…
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Branta bernicla
Or, just plain Brant. A winter visitor to our waters. This one was spotted off the coast of Brooklyn recently. (Those on the west coast have black bellies and are known as Black Brant. They were once considered a separate species from these east coasters.)
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More Cooper
Of late, the Cooper Hawks I’ve seen have been in the air, as yesterday’s post, or huddling in the yews and arbor vitae. But this one was perching as bold as brass… or is that rusty iron? With nary a Blue Jay in sight… The Jays have been abundant in Green-Wood this winter. They let…
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Raptor Wednesday
Cooper Hawk amidst the Rock Doves!A dangerous ballet in the sky for the flock, which has the confusion of numbers on their communal side.There was no killing in this swirl, nor in the one seen the very next day in the same general area.Nor in the hawk/pigeon flurry yesterday before the snow flurries.In fact, when…
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Winter Killdeer
Rocks, Ring-billed Gulls, and hey, a Killdeer! (You can’t see the rats inside the rocks, but when they scurry around in broad daylight, you know the tubular rodents are all over; suckers have always loved waterfronts.) Bush Terminal Park had breeding Killdeer last year.
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Pollination Reminder
This Sierra Club lecture on Wednesday looks great: *SIERRA CLUB NEW YORK CITY GROUP SUSTAINABILITY SERIES 2019* *WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13: BIRDS, BEES AND BUGS KEEP OUR GARDENS HEALTHY* Michael Hagen – Curator of the Rock Garden & Native Plant Garden, NY Botanical Garden Timothy Leslie – Associate Professor, Department of Biology, LIU Brooklyn Heather Liljengren…
Backyard and Beyond 