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Good Bones
A couple of red oaks. Gates of tuliptree, or… Ents, yes, there are definitely Ent possibilities in these two. An uncharacteristic tuliptree. Usually they are quite straight and single-boled.
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Cocoons
Over the weekend I found four large silkworm cocoons. This one was hanging in an oak. This one was on the ground. I turned it over to see the other side. Coin is just over an inch in diameter. There was an oak overhead…. Another in a willow oak (at perhaps half a mile’s distance…
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Cactus Pose
So, while a nation slept… the Opuntia genus of cactuses expanded. Somewhere back in the day, I learned that the only native cactus found this far north (and east) was the eastern prickly pear, Opuntia humifusa. (Some pictures of them in flower from summers past at Jamaica Bay.) The taxonomists now say there is another…
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Raptor Wednesday
Cooper’s Hawk! This bird was still up here two hours later. I think it was digesting breakfast. *** Uncivil disobedience: a new paradigm in Hong Kong, or how do you fight the awful might of the state?
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American Wigeon
Male. Female. Choate says wigeon is from the French vigeon, for a whistling duck. Possibly from the Latin vipeo for small crane.
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Mammal Monday
Directly above this very cautious squirrel was a A Red-tailed Hawk (and some obstreperous Blue Jays). The hawk had a very full crop. So digesting and chillaxing. In the same tree as the hawk, another squirrel.
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H. histrionicus
Brooklyn has gone avian rarities this winter. A Varied Thrush, a bird of the northwest into Alaska, has been hanging out in Prospect Park. A female Painted Bunting has been enjoying the amenities at Brooklyn Bridge Park, which is also hosting a Black-headed Gull amid the thousands of Ring-billed Gulls who roost there. And, something…
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Motley Mute
Mute Swans are invasive, but the transition from juvenile to adult plumage is still kinda cool.
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Hedge Apple
For years I have read that Osage Orange (Maclura pomifera) is also known as hedge apple and that it was often used as natural fencing, a living hedge as well as the source of very long lasting fence posts. I’ve never quite understood how this would work since the specimens I see are usually stately…
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Phoebe Again
The day after spotting an Eastern Phoebe in Green-Wood, I saw one in Prospect Park.Traditionally, one of the first migratory birds to show up here in the spring. This means they’re not coming from very far away. And as it gets warmer, some of them aren’t even leaving. This one made a dive down to…
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Backyard and Beyond 