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Beech
Leaves and flower of European beech, Fagus sylvatica. I don’t think this is one of those purple beeches (all the fancy copper, weeping, cut-leaf, etc. varieties stem from F. sylvatica), just that the new leaves are initially full of red. Not uncommon for just-budded leaves. Anthocyanins seem to protect the tender leaves from too much…
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Mammal Monday
I’ve been watching squirrels rush along mid-building parapets and window casements to get to this spot all winter. Thought it was a nest, and voila, four youngsters! Parent on the left in these pictures. I gather that there’s plastic covering a small A/C unit here. The outer lining, open at the top? Don’t know what…
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Mniotilta varia
Black-and-white Warblers are quick-moving bark-foragers. They are one of our more common warblers, but they are hard to capture without a flash. The binomial: the genus means moss-plucking, since they may use moss (and horsehair and grasses) to line their nests. Species epithet varia means varied, for the plumage. Small bird, big tree. With a…
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Rough-winged Swallows
Surprised by half a dozen of these earlier this week. Barn and Tree Swallows are the more usual locals, with an occasionally Rough-winged in the mix during migration. But they do nest in the city: Staten Island, the Bronx, possibly Queens, according to the last breeding bird atlas, done in the Oughts. (The Third Atlas…
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The Secret Parts of Fortune
The Gray Catbirds have returned! I didn’t see a single one on Saturday, when I was scouting out species with a vengeance. On Wednesday, the next time I was in Green-Wood, I saw them in clumps of half a dozen each. Spring’s southern winds come raining catbirds. Dumetella carolinensis, a study in gray. Then, surprisingly,…
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Butter Butt, Butter Bill?
Yellow-rumped Warblers. European Starling. This is the top of a gated window at a neighboring industrial building, formerly a sweatshop and currently a warehouse (but closed for viruses). The babies inside the nest in there can be heard calling for food when the parents are foraging.
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Raptor Wednesday
Every once and a while, an Osprey scouts out Green-Wood’s Sylvan Water, the largest body of water in the cemetery. Just in case. There certainly are fish in there. This one is entirely too small for an Osprey, but intriguing nonetheless. What is it? Of course, that fish is perfect for a Kingfisher. This one…
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Heather Lady
Do you see it? A small lady beetle. Chilocorus bipustulatus: Bugguide goes with “Heather Lady Bug”; iNaturalist with “Heather Ladybird,” its English name. Glossy enough to see my silhouette in its elytra. This species is native to western Eurasia. According to Bugguide, it’s been introduced around the world to combat scale insects. These beetles are…
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Parkesia motacilla
Louisiana Waterthrush. One of the 80 or so observations I entered for the City Nature Challenge on Saturday morning. Most of these were old friends. I’ll share one of the new ones tomorrow.
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Some Trees a-Leafing
Shagbark hickory. Walnut. Gutta-percha tree. European beech. Black willow. Pin oak. Willow oak. White oak. Not sure which oak…perhaps swamp white or black. Northern red oak. Pignut hickory.
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Backyard and Beyond 