Fieldnotes

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) showing the yellow belly for a change. I’m assuming this is a female working towards adult plumage. Sapsucking. The bird drills out holes to pool sap, which she eats, along with any insects attracted to the sap. (We’ve had some Diptera still flying in this mild Decemeber.) Yews (Taxus) are particularly…

A little woodpecker variety for the last Wednesday of the year. Above, a male Downy (Picoides pubescens), who pounded out a grub from a larch branch. These little woodpeckers will range through the borough. This, however, is a Hairy Woodpecker (Dryobates villosus), which is uncommon in Brooklyn. This, from the middle of the month, is…

A recent snowfall. All traces of it are now gone after a 60 degree Xmas Eve. But while it lasted, it was tracked up with all sorts of animal prints. In fact, I was amazed at the unseen but traceable activity in Green-Wood. A lot of Eastern Grey Squirrel and Common Raccoon. Big-foot Canada Geese…

The slope of the public lot in Green-Wood is sprinkled with trees. Cornered by two roads beyond the fence, it’s a cut-de-sac that has been favored for years by American Kestrels as a hunting ground.

A conifer is a good place to find Red-breasted Nuthatches now. This fall’s big migratory wave of Red-breasted has long since passed through, and now White-breasted are more noticeable, but if you look and listen hard enough at the evergreen clumps, you may be rewarded with these little pointy birds. This was a merged together…

A pellet expelled by…? Something that eats insects. You can just see the chevron-like markings of a Differential Grasshopper’s hind leg here. These are our biggest grasshoppers. American Kestrels eat them. Another pellet, larger and without large chitin or bone parts. Found under another pine. This time of year, conifers provide cover for raptors. These…

In two of these pictures, you have to search for the Red-tailed Hawk. The bird made two attempts to grab this knot-holed Gray Squirrel and did not succeed. Raptor Wednesday, or, the Mammal’s Salvation.

I remember when I went to Montreal some years ago in the fall and saw lots of maples, silver especially, and lots and lots of dark splotches on the leaves. These, however, are examples from right here in Brooklyn. This is Black Tar Spot (Rhytisma acerinum), an ascomycete fungi. It’s cosmetic, not existential.

Yesterday, with temps in the low 40s and windchill pushing the feel down into the 30s, a tiny ant and a Margined Calligrapher were both working it in a dandelion.

Not an atypical look at a wren in typical habitat. Do you see the underside of the Carolina’s tail? Some five minutes’ vigil, however, ended when the bird popped up to the top of the tangle of thicket whose floor they were rummaging in.