Five or so years ago, I started noticing these bulges in the stems of Mugwort/Artemesia vulgaris around Brooklyn. I thought they must be galls, formed probably by some kind of insect. Surprisingly, given how common they seemed, nobody on iNaturalist ventured a guess as to what was inducing the plant to bulge out. Flash forward…

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A Common Green Darner, one of our biggest species of dragonfly, caught one of the Pantala gliders and proceeded to bite its head off. That is some substantial prey!

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Sunday: five days after I’d last seen them, the two nestlings were bursting at the lichen-y seams of their nest. Fledgling was imminent. (Their bills have a way to go, though.) The nest day, about 22 hours later, there was only one bird in the nest. I hope the first one made it. I admit…

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Daddy Kestrel on Sunday. A different male a few days earlier. And this female.

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I think this might be a Brilliant Jumping Spider/Phidippus clarus, but nobody has concurred on iNat.

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I watched this three-and-a-half-winged Monarch lay egg after egg recently. Here are just a few:

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“We may never see this again in our lifetime,” said one birder to another on Saturday as I was passing by. Well, that piqued my interest! They had been shown a Ruby-throated Hummingbird nest on Rob Jett’s Green-Wood bird walk earlier that day. The tiny lichen-covered cup was a challenge to spot, but soon after…

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Twelve-spotted Skimmer. Wandering Glider. Black Saddlebags.

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July 22nd. August 1st. September 9th. (Looks like this family, seen near the gangplank earth time, shrunk by one).

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