Backyard and Beyond

Baltimore Orioles have nested in this linden tree for at least two previous breeding seasons. Do they ever recycle their old nests? Or the materials contained in them? There’s a lot of human-made material incorporated in their woven bag nests, including ribbon (many bunches of flowers in a cemetery…) and string. This stuff doesn’t break down as easily as the more traditional nesting material of grasses and plant fibers.

Another Vespula ground yellowjacket species in the ‘hood! Southern Yellowjacket, Vespula squamosa. This is a queen. She was probably looking for a nice hole at the base of this old cherry to start a nest. This is the first report for this species in Brooklyn on iNaturalist; they’re recorded on Staten Island, Manhattan, and further out on Long Island. That makes five Vespula species I’ve seen here in the borough.

Only the last of these has two spots, but Adalia bipunctata also comes in a black-with-four-red-markings form.

At first, I thought this nearly two-inch-long Eastern Eyed Click Beetle crawling up a London plane tree was actually two beetles. This is a lot of beetle. I’ve seen Alaus oculatus before, but I have never gotten such a close view.

The larvae of this species preys on other beetle larvae found in decaying wood. The adults don’t eat much, evidently.

Thank you, contributors!

There has been a lot of Fish Crow activity in the neighborhood for weeks now. I hear them all the time. Yesterday, this Eastern Kingbird wasn’t too happy about it.

Well, well, well! A wing-flapping fledgling being fed. I don’t know where the nest is, but it must not be too far away.

The patience of a heron inspires me to wait patiently for the bird to come my way. Both Great Egrets and Green Herons tend to patrol the edge of Sylvan Water in a similar fashion, moving slowly around the edge with periodical pauses before quick, lunging thrusts of their bills into the water. Sometimes, when one is still and/or partially shielded by a tree or a mausoleum, the birds will continue to stalk closer and closer and closer to you.

Two Red-eyed Vireos seen in close proximity to each other, and no territorial tsuris between them, suggesting nesting.

Dark Paper Wasp.

House Wren.

Sylvan Jumping Spider.

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker holes on a tuliptree. In Brooklyn, I’ve now found the sign of these birds on 27 tree species I can name and three I can only get to genus.

The Two-spotted Lady Beetle comes in a black form with four spots.

See the little spiky bits emerging from the male Asian Lady Beetle’s elyatra? This is Green Beetle Hanger (Hesperomyces virescens), a parasitic ascomycete fungus. Doesn’t seem to be typically fatal, which may be a bad thing given that ALBs are invasive. Finding it on the majority of ALBs in these patches of common milkweed in Green-Wood.

Wet and harried by Blue Jays.