A sapling… Hawthorn, I guess. The spine and twig swellings suggest galls to me, but I haven’t tracked any causative agents. Hawthorns, genus Creteagus, have a colorful taxonomic history. Find a century old tree book and you’ll see hundreds of species in North America alone. In the northern hemisphere, there were supposed to be about…

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Deja vu all over again? Recently, on this very antenna, a Merlin was eating. But this is no Merlin: The queen of all she surveys. There have only been two day this year that I haven’t seen this female American Kestrel on her patch in my neighborhood. (Well, I presume she’s the same bird.) She’s…

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A couple of Eastern Grey Squirrels tucked into this tree. One had a mouthful of dry leaves, new insulation. Unlike in local parks, Green-Wood’s squirrels are fairly shy. (No picnickers to provide food; no European tourists to be rolled.) And then there’s…. Two skulls found under a pine that hosted a Red-tailed Hawk nest last…

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Every winter I think I’m not going to see a Hairy Woodpecker. Here’s a recent male (above) in Prospect Park. And here is a female in Green-Wood. Here’s a male Downy Woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) for comparison. These are more frequently seen here, so I always have to do a double-take to make sure I know…

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A couple of male Northern Cardinals popping the viewer’s eyes on a foggy winter day. This Wilson Bulletin note has them in Bristol, PA, just northwest of Philly, in 1901. But by 1920, the species had withdrawn from the limits of its northern range, which was just about New York City. Then they started coming…

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I still maintain it’s remarkable that just yards from the raceway of the Belt Parkway, Purple Sandpipers rock-climb on the rip-rap bulkhead from Yellow Hook to Sheepshead Bay. Is this Maine girt in rockweeds and wracked in barnacles? No, it’s the coast of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

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From a five blocks away, you can see there is a disturbance in the raptor force, something atop St. Michael’s. From two blocks away, where this picture was taken, it’s Peregrine confirmation. Getting closer. The most dangerous part of this mission–getting to where the low afternoon sun is behind you–is crossing the block that’s all…

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Staten Island’s wharf rats have met their match. A juvenile Swainson’s Hawk (Buteo swainsoni) was spotted Sunday on Front Street by the S.I. Railroad’s big car maintenance building. The bird was in the same area Monday, when I took these pictures. Those long primaries! (They edge just past the tail.) Swainson’s are a fairly common…

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