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.”

  • Galls

    This is the work Contarinia racemi, a midge that forces these swellings on black cherry racemes. You really have to immerse yourself in the foliage this time of year. There are a lot of these out there. So far I’ve found some 9 species of gall mites; 20 species of gall midges, and 33 species…

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  • More Warblers

    For World Migratory Bird Day.

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  • Flowers on Friday

    The enormous flowers of big leaf magnolia smell… extraordinarily good. (This is evidently a quick way of telling Magnolia macrophylla from the similar large-flowered Magnolia tripetala, which stinks.) I smelled a very refreshing citrus, a nostalgic cola, and summertime. And I smelled it yards and yards away.

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  • Nesting

    It’s so nosy on around the bridge, what with construction, traffic, more construction at Fulton Ferry, the harbor, etc., that I could barely hear the Raven calling from up on the wires. This one, on a near by building, was more audible. There were nests all around. Pigeons are probably also nesting on the bridge.…

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  • Raptor Wednesday

    Female American Kestrel on the car service antenna. I’ve now seen Starlings enter the cornice hole I’d seen her fly into twice, so that doesn’t look like the nest site after all. Yet she’s still here in the neighborhood. Male American Kestrel by the Monk Parakeet nest at Green-Wood’s main entrance. I’ve now seen these…

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  • Gall Wasp #30 and a Gall Midge

    On the fresh young leaves of a pin oak (Quercus palustris), the globular galls of the Succulent Oak Gall Wasp (Dryocosmus quercuspalustris). Also on the catkins. The binomial alludes to their being found on this species of oak, but this gall ID database notes that they can be found on other oak species as well. I’ve…

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  • Mammal Monday

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  • Return to the Prairie

    Passing the hat.

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  • May Day: More Warbler

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  • Interactions

    A nice patch of spring beauties was mowed over in Green-Wood last week. The death-cult of the lawn is still triumphant. We should honor our dead with life, living plants and the animals they foster. This Oblique-banded Pond Fly (Sericomyia chrysotoxoides) was found on another, larger patch more recently. City Nature Challenge starts today.

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