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.”

  • Raptor Wednesday

    Red-tailed Hawks are commonly seen here in Brooklyn. It’s notable when I don’t see one on a walk in Green-Wood. They not even uncommon sights from the apartment window. A couple of weeks ago, on a very windy morning, I watched four of them simultaneously riding the wind. But this is something different. All these…

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  • Solar Powered

    A 73-degree November day early this month kept the lizards slithery. Have we seen the last of them until the spring? I saw my first years ago in a Queens cemetery where Harry Houdini is supposedly buried. (Well, he got out of a lot of things, right?) Podarcis siculus. iNaturalist’s lizard crew marks them as…

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  • More Fall Birds

    Black-capped Chickadee joining American Goldfinchs and Purple Finch. Purple Finch, on the right, rotates the sunflower seed in her bill to crack the shell open, then flicks off the inedible bits. Black-capped Chickadee takes a seed and flies nearby to pound open. Tufted Titmouse on the left. Still a few Pine Siskins around.

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  • Fall Birds

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  • Catharus guttatus

    This Hermit Thrush was unusually confiding/unconcerned about my presence. The bird rapidly shook its legs on the ground. Like an American Woodcock, but more spasmodically. Calling forth the invertebrates… Admittedly, at first I thought this was a nervous disorder! I’ve seen a lot of thrushes over the years, but this was surely the closest, and…

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  • Warm Fall

    </And then we had a couple days of rain and a descent of the thermometer.

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  • Cooper’s Redux

    The next time I passed this thicket, there were no Blue Jays to be heard. But right out in the open, albeit on the other side of a chain-link fence, this Cooper’s looked alert. Note the bulging upper chest. This means the bird’s crop is full of lunch. *** Was it as long ago as…

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  • Raptor Wednesday

    The D train takes a sharp turn and comes out into the open air down in a below-grade cut at 4th Avenue before disappearing back underground about half-a block, or half a train length, east, heading towards 5th Avenue. High fencing surrounds this cut on all sides. A wilderness of trees and vines adds an…

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  • Autumn Meadowhawk

    Waited all through October for the sight of a Sympetrum vicinum. Three centimeters of fiery, late season dragonfly. Finally spotted one last Friday, when the temperature got into early 70s. Spotted at Sylvan Water in Green-Wood, the only one seen. Not many of these have been observed this fall in NYC, at least according to…

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  • Pignut and Other Colors

    Your reds get talked about a lot during the fall, but let’s not forget the yellow of a pignut hickory. Same tree, a different day, and later sunlight. A bald cypress cultivar, I think. Northern red oak. Franklinia alatamaha. Not found in the wild since the early 19th century, all specimens today are cultivated. Named…

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