This scappy specimen may be explained by the damaged foot.

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It’s fruiting body weather.

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Finding a nutty something on the ground, this Red-breasted Nuthatch wedged it into some bark and began to work out the meat. Looks like this has happened a few times here. Note sure this is the same bird. But it sure is a pale specimen.

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Judging from the number and freshness of sap holes, this crab apple is visited often by Yellow-breasted Sapsuckers.

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Ubiquitous yet elusive… the three-alarm fire of winter is fairly camera-shy, but in this case I happened to be below the bird on a slope.

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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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