Fieldnotes
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Raptor Wednesday
Last week, we espied a Cooper Hawk with prey inside a yew. This week, we’re inside an arbor vitae. These hawks do like their cover.This could be the very same mature bird. This time, lunch was one of those white “doves” which are actually homing pigeons.This was the plucking site, under some nearby yews. Jays…
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Winterized
Look up, look down, look all around. This surely must be the mantra of the naturalist. I was looking at an American Kestrel way in a big willow oak; it had been flying from tree to tree and antenna, too, on the border of Green-Wood. But now the lighting and distance were not conducive to…
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Mammal Monday
Usually raccoons sleep off the night’s revels in a conifer, as here in Green-Wood, but when in Rome….Someplace, for instance, where the evergreens are in short supply, as in this section of Pelham Bay. A sharper eye than mine pointed out that this hammock is fundamentally made up of poison ivy vine. In the news:…
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Sapsucker Sign
Deep inside a yew canopy.The sap is running… well, okay, maybe ambling is a better description. I watched a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker chased off from here by a Red-bellied Woodpecker. The Red-bellied actually pinned the Sapsucker down to the ground for a brief moment, feathers outspread like a mantling raptor, before the birds separated. I’d never…
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Baeolophus bicolor
Wind-tussled Tufted Titmouse in a beech tree with a few old leaves hanging on. *** So last year was the fourth warmest year since 1850. It was slightly cooler than the top three warmest years since 1850… which were, in order, 2016, 2017, and 2015. This data is from BerkeleyEarth; NOAA and NASA haven’t been…
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Oh, Schist!
The eastern edge of Twin Island, facing Long Island Sound just north of Orchard Beach in the Bronx, is an outcropping of the Hartland Formation schist.And does it ever outcrop!Quoting the geological argot of the USGS “The rock consists of granitic and garnetiferous amphibolite gneiss with numerous quartz veins and migmatite dikes. Migmatite is an…
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What Goes?
Chipping Sparrow with some kind of growth under the bill. Any thoughts?That’s bird feed all around, spillage from a hanging feeder. There is an avian bill deformity virus, Avian Keratin Disorder, that has spread out from ground zero in Alaska. In that case, the bills grow much longer than usual. This looks more tumorous, but…
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Hooded Mergansers
Shouldn’t be too long before these come into their breeding finery.
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Bufflehead
The purples and greens in this male Bufflehead are pretty subtle, especially on an overcast day. But that bufflehead!So named because of the resemblance to a buffalo’s head. If you say so. Was Dewlapped Duck not considered?One of our winter visitors, they bred much further north. They’re cavity nesters, and small enough to use the…
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Ruddy
A flotilla of resting Ruddy Ducks. The bills on the males will turn even bluer before it’s all over.
Backyard and Beyond 