Sunday night it finally got cold, dropping twenty degrees from the mid-fifties temperatures we had during the first two days of the year. Before the onset of thermometer winter, these two raccoons were sleeping al fresco in a Sweetgum.

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Mud nest tubes made by the Organ-pipe Mud-daubing Wasp (Trypoxylon politum). I’ve been finding a lot of old ones, from previous years, the ones with holes in them. Tucked out of the rain, especially in the nooks and crannies of mausoleums in Green-Wood and the tunnels in Prospect, they can last a few years. I…

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I see Peregrines fairly frequently. But they’re usually two long avenue blocks away on the tall church. It’s much rarer to see one perched in Green-Wood. The metal top of St Michael’s RC church at 4th Avenue is a long-time perch and butcher’s block. The other day, one Peregrine was up here eating (probably pigeon)…

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Going through my blog, I noticed I never posted about this Ruby-throated Hummingbird nest here in Brooklyn this summer. Where the devil are my manners?

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The year-in-review here on the blog would have to include: The uncommon Red-shouldered Hawk. Mating ants. The rapid finding of a new nest for the local American Kestrels. As it turned out, they actually nested in another cornice hole. The Evening Grosbeak. Groundhog pair-bonding. Brood X Magicicadas in New Jersey. Ravens nesting on the Brooklyn…

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E.O. Wilson RIP: the paper of record’s obituary.

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I realized after the fact and in some surprise that I’d flushed this heron from underneath a nearby pine. And that the bird wanted to get back under there.

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