Fieldnotes
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For the Pollinators
I recently attended a pollinator working group meeting here in Brooklyn sponsored by the City Parks Foundation and the National Wildlife Federation.* I’d like to share some of the things I came away with. Honeybees are ever in the news, but there are over two hundred other species of bees found in New York City.…
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The Spider Who Stayed Out in the Cold
This large Araneus diadematus orb-weaver has been living outside a Bronx living room window for nearly three months now. That included the last of summer, when a large window fan blew out towards her, making the web bounce like a trampoline. The web spans the breadth of the window. When she isn’t in its center,…
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Hickory Harvest
Carya cordiformis, Bitternut. A rich fall. Bitter they may be, but somebody likes ’em.They are very thinly husked.
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Raptor Wednesday
Peregrines are pretty regularly spotted above Brooklyn Borough Hall and Columbus and Cadman Plaza parks to its north. There’s a long-time scape (nesting site) nearby in the Pokey, and I heard from a passerby that there has also been one at the federal court house north of the Centrol PO. First I’ve heard of that.…
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Hickory Wind
Incoming! The hickory nuts were falling the other day. The big ones and the little ones. This is a Bitternut (Carya cordiformis), at least according to its label, and the nuts, the smallest below, certainly look right for the species. These ricocheted and caromed off branches as they fell, a subtle drumming (I mean, for…
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A Tale of Two Kingfishers
A female Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) in Green-Wood Cemetery recently. You almost always hear these birds before you see them. This one wasn’t rattling loudly, it was more of a whisper or grumble under her breath. Nonetheless, my ears crested, as it were, when I heard that dry sound. I find Kingfishers generally intolerant of…
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On The Shoulders of Giants
You probably know Isaac Newton’s famed homage to his predecessors and rivals, especially the last line here, addressed to Robert Hooke: “What Descartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, and especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen a little further it is…
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Fall?
Well, they fell, but they were the wrong color. The long lasting warmth seems to have kept many of the leaves going. Then a cold snap came. Ginkgo leaves usually turn a gorgeous yellow in the fall. Sassafras leaves should range from yellow to bright red. Sure, plenty of leaves have turned, but boy, this…
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This is just to say
I have eaten the persimmon that was on the ground and which you were probably saving for the opossum Forgive me it was delicious so sweet and so cold (with apologies to William Carlos Williams) Diospyros virginiana. Said in most accounts to only be palatable after the first frost. Well, it got cold. And, oh,…
Backyard and Beyond 