Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

Fieldnotes

  • Raptor Wednesday

    The frightful squealing came from behind me as I walked down 34th Street from 5th Avenue. Turning around, I saw two birds flying my way. A larger, darker one was above a smaller, tan or russety one. The tandem went half way down the street and veered to the north, the captured bird still making…

    mthew

  • Barks

    Beech and Sassafras running the gamut.A nice-sized Sassafras albidum. They run smaller in the city, where they’re often much newer plantings.And somewhere in the middle zone, Prunus avium, bird or sweet cherry.

    mthew

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  • Sweet Carolinas

    Carolina Wrens. Thryothorus ludovicianus. Two at the Dell Water. Full-throated.This one was rooting about in a crotch of a tree about six feet up. Yup, that’s mostly raccoon shit.

    mthew

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  • Kestrel Food

    What is this? He thought it was edible.American Kestrels eat birds, mammals, reptiles, and insects. Saw a picture recently of a male working on a Garter Snake. Some years ago, I became aware of Fence Lizards in the city because of a picture making the rounds of a kestrel flying to a nest with one…

    mthew

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  • Keeping Up With The Kestrels

    …is exhausting! The distinctive calling of the birds brings us to the windows throughout the day.They seem to be very effective hunters. In the photo above, the male is gripping a dead sparrow. You can just see the sparrow’s little toes. As he usually does, he proceeded to eat the sparrow’s head. Then he plucked…

    mthew

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  • Young Barnacles

    Barnacle sets. Found on a rock on the rocky glacial shore of Cold Spring Harbor at Sagamore Hill NHS. Barnacles are crustaceans, related to shrimp, crabs, lobsters. Shrimp that have glued their heads onto surfaces and built up walls to stand the siege of low tide… These strange sedentary — at least as adults —…

    mthew

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  • The Raid

    I heard the raven’s wings. The bird flew right overhead, close enough for me to hear the work of those great wings.This Common Raven returned to this duck nest six times, taking five eggs.The bird wasn’t gone very long after each foray. Presumably the eggs were eaten or cached nearby. The fifth time, the bird…

    mthew

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  • Raptor Wednesday

    I was returning home after several hours of birding. Right across the street from my apartment, a Red-tailed Hawk suddenly landed on top of a parked car. At the edge of the park, a shrub full of House Sparrows and a bush with a Grey Squirrel reverberated with chattered alarms. The big buteo launched into…

    mthew

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  • Corvus corax

    You usually hear them before you see them. Common Ravens are loud, croaking, talkative, barky.The pair circled around the Sylvan Water recently, skimming down low over the water and stirring up the geese. It was a spectacular display.And it was quite a scene there at the Sylvan. At least seven Phoebes and two Northern Rough-winged…

    mthew

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  • Garters

    Does this snake have a head at both ends?Eastern Garter Snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis).And another. Great Swamp NWR. I wanted to turn these into Ribbon Snakes. They were, after all, on tiny islands in the swamp. But look at the black marks on the sides of their faces. Ribbon Snakes, which are in the same…

    mthew

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