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.”

  • Bone Work

    Grey Squirrel gnawing on a bone. You know, one of those bones you find downslope from the road where the garbage piles up…. I suspect this is like the recycling of deer antlers by mice and other mammals in the forest. Going for the calcium? This may well be the nesting female seen earlier this…

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  • Raptor Wednesday

    There’s a light blue band on this Red-tailed Hawk, in addition to the regular silver band on the other foot. Don’t see many banded hawks around here. The bird was one of three seen at the same time. Blue-banded, upper left, is one of the birds building a nest. The immature bird on lower right…

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  • Ant Sex

    Last Friday it was in the mid 70s, the warmest day so far. The sun was out, and so were clouds of what turned out to be small male ants. There were much larger orange somethings in the air as well. Females, as it turned out. I was despairing of photographing any of them when…

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  • They’re Back!

    Question Mark. Black-shouldered Drone Fly. Unequal Cellophane Bee. Eastern Carpenter Bee. Andrena genus bee. (There are some 450 species in this genus in North America.) You’ll notice all of the above pictures show the same flowers. Pieris japonica, one of the few things fully blooming currently. Winged male Small Honey Ant. Which is a segue…

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  • Fishing?

    A pair of Mallards were fishing! Paddling up to the goldfish and then lunging at them. Didn’t see any catches… There were an awful lot of goldfish in the Dell Water. Here’s the thing: for most of last year, the Dell was practically just a puddle, half of it dry and overgrown with various plants.…

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  • Still Springing

    Apologies: I never finished yesterday’s post. Thursday’s first round of vaccine shots occupied much of my day and I forgot I’d drafted a rant for Friday morning. Both us got the Pfizer as over 50 year olds. There was some soreness in our arms and a craving for margaritas afterwards. We return in three weeks…

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  • Dog Park

    I haven’t been in Prospect Park in a year. Before that, for about half a dozen years, I only visited a few times a year. What a change this has been in my life! This blog’s “beyond” was Prospect when I first started. I live a little further away now, but the real reason is…

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  • Schnozzle

    Glimpses of the comblike projections (lamellae) along the edge of this male Northern Shoveler’s bill. They use these to filter their food from the water. Food includes tiny crustaceans, other aquatic invertebrates, and seeds.

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  • Raptor Wednesday

    Crows harrying a Red-tailed Hawk. Not too much later, two Red-tails were in the same tree. Then four of them were in the air together. Another day of crow patrol. Nest building in a pine. Copulating on a cross. These might not be the same birds as the ones building the nest. Yes, this is…

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  • Turkey Tuesday

    We’re seeing more Black Vultures as they spread north, but, in general, the vulture overhead around here is still most likely to be a Turkey Vulture. This is one of a couple who were passing over Green-Wood recently. In the last photo, see how the sliver/white back end of the wing feathers stretch from the…

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