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Sunday Thoughts
Last week I touched on Carl Safina essay about our moral obligation to the natural world. Since reading that piece, I’ve read Jedediah Purdy’s This Land is Our Land. In it, I find him citing Montaigne, who argued, in Purdy’s words, “that it was possible for a kind of humane and egalitarian affection to flow…
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Viny Attachments
Red tendrils are hairy, so scary. Well, perhaps not as memorable as “leaves of three, leave it be” as a mnemonic for identifying poison ivy, but there you go. The climbing form of Toxicodendron radicans loves a good tree. *** The USDA’s animal-killing division, named Wildlife Services in a touch of the Orwellian, wants to…
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It was a dry and rustling day
I let my ears do the walking. Rowdy Blue Jays lead me to a Cooper’s Hawk moving from branch to branch within the thick confines of a yew. The tapping of Downy Woodpeckers and the clucking of Red-bellied Woodpeckers rang through the leaf-stirring wind. A dry susurration, a crinkly crunch. (The annual up-to-the-calves-in-leaves self-portrait.)
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Galls Again
Yes, it’s time for a Fall Gall edition. These are the structures created by the tree, in this case, in response to insects (in these cases) who lay their eggs on the tree. This one is, I think, a Hedgehog Gall. Not sure on this species. Nor this. This one was much smaller and looked…
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Raptor Wednesday
A pair of Red-tailed Hawks, half of the foursome then in the sky over Green-Wood. The feet-down flying thing is romance. Another day, another Red-tailed. Yet another day, another Red-tailed….It is actually the day without a Red-tailed sighting is worth noting. Not easy to see, but look at that profile: this one has a very…
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End of An Era
I’ve been blessed with a few years of red and swamp white oaks as street tree neighbors on my way to the subway. A plethora of life forms sucking, chewing, reproducing, and dying on these trees has been visible at eye-level. Argh, but the contractors recently came through to limb all these up. Now the…
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Reddening Maple
Recto. Verso. And some others from a row of red maples:
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Ecological Services Be Damned
The Case for Saving Species: We Don’t Need Them, But They need Us. I hope you’ll read this short essay by Carl Safina, linked above. Some thoughts sparked by it: He makes the argument for our moral obligation to preserve species, habitat, and the ecological complexity of this, the only living planet we know. (Sure,…
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A Reading List
I’m just catching up to the Swift Guide to Butterflies of North America by Jeffrey Glassberg. Glassberg is an old butterfly hand, who’s written a couple of other guidebooks to the subject. (Never enough guidebooks!) He takes a firm stand against amateur netters and collectors (i.e. killers), commercially raised butterflies, and butterfly releases at weddings…
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Osprey
Alan F. Poole’s Ospreys: The Revival of a Global Raptor In my half century life, there has been a great recovery of Osprey populations after ruthless persecution and even more ruthless chemical warfare. Luckily, this long-distant migratory bird is highly adaptable. They readily take to artificial nesting spots: 3 of 5 pairs in North America…
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Backyard and Beyond 