Fieldnotes
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Mammal Monday
New York City’s City Hall Park squirrels are as bold as lobbyists. They come right up to you when you’re taking a picture of, say, a holly in the snow, and make their demands known.Elsewhere, however, the smaller mammals keep to the night, but that does not necessarily mean they make it through the night…
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Kestrel Week VII
A male American Kestrel in the rain.This London Plane tree across the street has been the scene of near daily Kestrel action. It’s definitely one of the bird’s perching spots. This is where the great battle with the Sharp-shinned Hawk took place, too.Two days later, in the sun. Same tree. This time the bird was…
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Kestrel Week VI
This is a Peregrine on St. Michael’s at 42nd & 4th Avenue.And this is a near approximation of what the church looks like from my apartment. See the Kestrel up there?I’m physically closer to the church for this one because I hurried down the two avenue blocks to confirm the sighting. I hadn’t seen Kestrels…
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Kestrel Week V
This was the first sign of a female Kestrel in the neighborhood. I first saw her January 13th. I’d been seeing males in Green-Wood, on Sunset Park High School, and on the 40th Street antenna, an elaborate, two-pronged structure used by a car service, since December.This is the second of three sightings of a male…
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Kestrel Week IV
A male American Kestrel in Green-Wood. The wide black bar on the tail so nicely fanned below is a good way to ID the male in flight, since the blue wings can’t be seen from below.These are some highlights from the literature: self-explanatory titles edition: “American Kestrel Eating Carrion” “American Kestrel Transports Norway Rat” (“labored…
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Kestrel Week III
Headless Kestrel on Rooftop Bar! They absolutely love old school TV antennas, which still litter the rooftops of Brooklyn, thank goodness. And strange pipes shooting up from rooftops. This is a rare neighborhood appearance by a female. There is no slate blue on her wings and she has more subdued head-patterning. She also doesn’t have…
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Kestrel Week II
A pair of American Kestrels has been cavorting around, all visible from our windows. Here they’re perching on a chimney pot (you may recognize it from previous Kestrel and Cooper’s Hawk perching).Male left, female right. I saw a pair — this one or another? — mating in January. March-April is more like it, with May…
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Kestrel Week I
By the power invested in me by myself and the internet, I declare this week to be American Kestrel Week here in Brooklyn! Here’s a male Falco sparverius perched in a London Plane in the ‘hood. Right next to my apartment building, as a matter of fact. Often called North America’s smallest raptor, this colorful…
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Kestrel Week Preview
The view the other morning. The male American Kestrel arrived first. We heard him before we saw him, as has been typical of the last week, when these little falcons have been in the neighborhood every day. The Starlings followed. But then, quick as a flash, the Starlings disappeared.Yes, it suddenly turned into a two-raptor morning.*…
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Bald Eagles Over the Hudson
An hour north of New York City, the Hudson River Valley is absolutely lousy with Bald Eagles. If you’re old enough to remember, this is a radical change from the 1960s-1980s. In 1981, there were no occupied territories [a category that doesn’t even necessarily include breeding pairs] in Connecticut, only one in New Jersey, and…
Backyard and Beyond 