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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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Naked Branches Budding
The branches of Kentucky coffeetrees look dead in winter. No buds. Gnarly indecipherable leaf scars. But they are showing signs of life now. Gymnocladus dioicus: the binomial tells you a lot of what you want to know. The genus means “naked branch,” referring to the stark lack of twigs. The species name means the tree…
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Hoppers
The grasses erupt with tiny jumping things. They don’t go far. Finding one isn’t easy because they’re so small. They’re leafhoppers. iNaturalist members say this one is is in genus Dikraneura. And one, even smaller, with no common name, Kosswigianella perusta. Indeed, this wasn’t even a species in the iNaturalist database. Gray Lawn Leafhopper (Exitianus…
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Earth Day After
I was seven in April of 1970. I don’t recall hearing about the first Earth Day. We were living in Canada then. Our modest Toronto suburb was at the extremity of the city line. Two houses down, Bestview (!) Street dead-ended in what seemed like the beginning of the prairie. It’s been developed since, but…
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