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Shore Dinner
I watched as this Herring Gull dropped this Hardshell Clam (quahog) one two three times before the shell broke apart. The meaty deliciousness within went down the hatch pretty quickly. Note the flecks in the eye. The shelly remains. Nearby was this half-eaten fish. Possibly Atlantic Menhaden. When I returned about 45 minutes later, the…
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Holly Month
These two tads, both at the base of the same massive beech, seem to have survived the demonic weed-whackers. They are located about 200 feet in a straight line from this very spectacular American holly (Ilex opaca). This damage may come from the larvae of a fly in the Phytomyza genus. The big boy pictured…
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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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Backyard and Beyond 