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.”

  • Catbird Seat

    A bit late, but here’s my sometimes annual The Catbirds Are Here announcement.

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  • World Bee Day

    Rufous-backed Cellophane Bees (Colletes thoracicus) mating. This is one of the 4000+ bees species found in North America; and/or one of approximately 450 species found in NYS; and/or one of around 200 species in NYC. This female, by the way, has damaged wings. Just over half of our bees are ground-nesters like the Rufous-backed. About…

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  • Various shades of orange

    This Scarlet Tanager was just gobbling up flying things. Possibly bees and wasps. This Baltimore Oriole, meanwhile, was finding tidbits in old galls in a Shagbark Hickory.

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  • Buggin’

    There may still be openings in my Green-Wood Bugging Out Walk on Sunday. This is aimed for 5-12 year olds and their parents. Molly is leading a Meet Your Green Neighbors walk on the same day, but earlier, and aimed at adults. Above is the first Bald-faced Hornet I’ve seen this year. She was scraping…

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  • Raptor Wednesday

    10/A pursued by a Fury, or at least, a Common Grackle. This one was way up there, but if you look hard you can see the wide tail band and the dark edges to the wings: Broad-winged Hawk in migration north.

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  • The Weavers

    May 8th The beginnings of a Baltimore Oriole woven nest in a London Plane. I’ve noticed that the nests here in Green-Wood are often made up of human-made materials—plastics, ribbons, fibers—and that they don’t break down over the winter—indeed, even several winters—like ones made out of plant materials would. Here, judging by his nearby presence,…

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  • Le Rouge et le Noir

    It is the breeding time of year, when smaller birds dare to go after the much bigger, sometimes in teams, other times solo as in this case.

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  • A rough day for the fishes

    Opening wide before partially submerging, this Double-crested Cormorant snagged breakfast as a swallow zoomed by in the foreground. On the second of two plunges into Prospect Park Lake, this Osprey came up with prey Within one minute along Sylvan Water in Green-Wood, this Great Egret caught one two Bluegills.

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  • Nesting

    Quite a bit of garbage going into this Robin’s nest. Maybe too much? Six days later I walked by again and saw no further evidence of construction. Here’s a more traditional nest, very grassy. We can’t see the mud lining.

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  • Cherry Petal Scenery

    *** A reminder that I also write for JSTOR Daily, where recent topics have included possums, rocket sex cults, anointing of kings named Charles, and the strange posthumous career of Albert Einstein’s brain.

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