Fieldnotes
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Baby Kestrels All Over
The sound was like the alarm sounds the kestrels make when there’s a crow or hawk in the ‘hood, the high, fast, cycling sound, only it continued for a much longer period. I heard it consistently for half an hour, and on and off for a good two hours in total. By the time I…
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Glossy Ibis
The first time I saw a Glossy Ibis was in Jamaica Bay. I didn’t even know we even had ibis in the Americas. There are actually three species found in the U.S. The Glossy, Plegadis falcinellus, gets up as far as southern coastal Maine during the breeding season. The White-faced is a prairie states breeder…
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Raptor Wednesday
It’s been a while since I’ve had a close encounter with any raptor other than my neighbors the #BrooklynKestrels. On Sunday I walked into this. A Red-tailed Hawk, who had probably bathed earlier and was now grooming, perched fairly low in a dogwood. And nobody was happy about it but me. A pair of Baltimore…
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Bluets & Forktails
Azure Bluet (Enallagma aspersum) male.Familiar Bluet (Enallagma civile) male. Familiar Bluet female, one of three color forms for this species. When odonating, you will quickly see that it’s males who patrol the water. Females are often munching away elsewhere, and come down to the water to pair up and lay their eggs in the wet…
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Be the Turtle You Want To Be
Snapping Turtle Chelydra serpentina. The females are making their way ashore now to lay eggs. Some will walk a long way, unfortunately attempting to cross roads, so keep an eye out if you’re driving.The clouds were turning on and off the sun. I’d say this was a medium-large sized specimen. I’ve seen larger ones, true,…
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Baby Kestrel(s)!
BREAKING NEWS: far too many humans are horrible Republicans, excuse the redundancy, but that’s not news. What’s news is I caught a glimpse of a near-fledgling American Kestrel in the corner cornice this afternoon!Looks like a male with those spots. He pulled this ribbon, some leftover from the previous (Starling, methinks) occupants of this cornice,…
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Other Kestrels
The city’s rooftops are alive with drama. Here’s a pair of American Kestrels above Manhattan’s Chinatown. The male has some prey. The Mourning Dove is, what, kibitzing? This photo was taken by a Friend of the Falcons who has been on the lookout for a nest site for this pair. I recently passed another kestrel…
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Nesting
Two Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) were cutting across the parking lot repeatedly. They were gathering nest material: Seems awfully late, doesn’t it? Many species have already fledged this year. Others are well into incubation. But Cedar Waxwings are very late nesters: they want their young to be hungry around the same time as summer’s fruits…
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Amberwing
Perithemis tenera. *** I found this, on the carbon bombing of the planet and the fatalism that induces in some, interesting.
Backyard and Beyond 