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Beginning Again, or Monday, Monday
Full of pollen and spores, covered in spiderweb, you don’t walk through nature, you walk in nature. Blinking Common Grackles.
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Pandemic Notes #3
Among the 21,138+ Covid-19 deaths in NYC are neighborhood men who ran a local pizza joint and a corner bodega. There are now 96,662+ coronavirus deaths in U.S. under the vicious incompetence of Donald Trump and his grand-old-pary-of-death-enablers. (These are Saturday’s numbers and will be bigger when this is published.) Because the Republican-fascists are waging…
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Here They Come/Here They Come/Here They Come
Yesterday morning the “bronk!” of a raven lifted my eyes to the window. They were passing right over the building. Four of them! Another followed from another angle. Looks like the class of 2020 is on the wing. Two of them landed on St. Michael’s for a brief perch above their domaine. A hour or…
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Damselflies
Saw my first “ode” of the year on May 7th. Both damselflies, of which this is one, and dragonflies are members of the Odonata order. This one looks recently emergent. It was flying weakly, characteristic of a newly emerged adult, getting used to operating those four wings. This one is easier to identify: a Fragile…
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Raptor Wednesday
The local male American Kestrel. He’s working like a dog now that there must be nestlings in the hole in the cornice where the nest is. These photos, from Sunday morning, document him hunting and eating insects. From the size and color, I’d say roaches or waterbugs that he was grabbing off a couple of…
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Egrets in Trees
Two Great Egrets at the same small pond. Lots of guttural grumblings and retreats to the trees as they contested for… …the rights to the water.
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Winged Critters
Yesterday I pictured some warblers enjoying winged termites, which kept fluttering through the air. Here are some of the termites on the ground. Birders often call these eruptive spring events “hatch-outs” as all sorts of birds come for the feasting at ground level or close to it. Both male and female reproductive caste members of…
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Warblers
Sometimes they land right in front of you. Magnolia Warbler. Other times, most times, not so much. Bay-breasted Warbler. Rather more typical view… Wilson’s Warbler, named after pioneering ornithologist Alexander Wilson. And sometimes, termites reproductives, the winged ones, emerge, and the songbirds fly right overhead hawking them out of the air. (As I was trying…
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Backyard and Beyond 