How un-red-breasted this Red-breasted Nuthatch is. A female. Yellow-throated Vireo. I don’t see these every year. Thought it was an another Pine Warbler at first glance with the yellow eye-ring and two white wing bars way up in an oak.

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I saw my first Evening Grosbeak in 2012 in Prospect Park. That was a female. This might possibly be the first male I’ve seen. Seen in Green-Wood today. Coccothraustes vespertinus: this binomial could be translated as “kernel-shatterer of the west/evening.” That big beak crushes the opposition (seeds/nuts/kernels). The Latin vespertina means both evening and west.

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Carol Gracie’s Spring Wildflowers of the Northeast is such a delight to read. Here we learn, for instance, why there can be such color variation in populations of spring beauties (Claytonia virginica), the role of ants in transporting the seeds, and the hundred-plus insects that visit the flowers. “Selective pressures are working at cross-purposes: in…

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Through the winter, a few White-throated Sparrows can be found foraging in the 4th Avenue extension of Green-Wood. Most of the local White-throats who visit us in the winter are found deeper in the cemetery. The 4th Avenue section, which has streets on four sides (there’s a tunnel under 5th Avenue that I bet most…

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Got our second does of Pfizer vaccine yesterday. Grackle says, “Get vaccinated!” The more, the merrier.

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The sheer intensity of a raptor’s gaze. This Red-tailed Hawk was hunting… lizards. I have seen American Kestrels successfully capture and eat the local lizards. This big buteo didn’t have any such luck. I think this is the same heavily marked bird, seen here a day later nearby. Kestrel reception is good, with some interference…

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The ornamental cherry biz, filled with grafts, hybrids, and trademarked varietals, looks complicated. Luckily, the above samples are tagged and mapped in Green-Wood. This one, though, is not. There’s been a suggestion that it’s Prunus avium, wild cherry. Lots of pretty, to be sure, but not a lot of pollinators. They’re like roses, an exotic…

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These two House Finches were in the same tree courting. Couldn’t get these two Carolina Wrens to cooperate for a photo, but they were foraging in close proximity.

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The Northern Italian Wall Lizards seem to be doing well. I counted eight the other day, including the one in the series of photos below, peeking out of a crevice in a pyramidal mausoleum. Thank you to all the contributors to my keep-this-blog-afloat appeal!

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