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“As you know, this is not a new issue.”
Recently, I cited this April 1979 report, The Long Term Impact of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide on Climate, from the Jasons to the DOE. That same year saw the publication of Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment, by the Ad Hoc Study Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate. It’s conclusion: “It appears that the warming…
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Quiscalus quiscula
Now, there’s binomial! Doesn’t really help to translate it, however, since it basically means “quail quail.” Well, then, my favorite quail… anyway, as long as we stay away from the Middle Latin-to-English thing and just let Quiscalus quiscula ripple off the tongue. What I’m trying to suggest here is that “Common” Grackle is simply unfair.…
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Second Round
This is the second round of young American Robins in this nest this year. The first brood fledged in the middle of May. At this rate, there’s time for a third brood. The parent bird is holding an unripened mulberry.Another bird on the same day, June 22nd, with the more traditional earthworm.
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July 4, 2019
Fox News, the blackjack of Rupert Murdoch’s assault on America, recently stated that the three least “patriotic” states were New Jersey, New York, and California, in that order. Ha! My first thought was: come on New York, we can be number one! The faux patriotism of Fox — with its mendacity, Trump-worship, white nationalism, and…
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Raptor Wednesday
Monday morning dawned and lo and behold there were two female American Kestrels on the Solar Building! The one on the left had the tell-tale head fuzz of a fledgling. Just like that, voila! So there was another Brooklyn Kestrel in the house!Was there only one? Within the hour that Monday morning: there were three…
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The Membrane-Winged
An Eastern Carpenter Bee working the milkweed.This is one of our biggest bees, so note the tiny little critter to its right in both pictures above. Didn’t see this one while photographing. Not sure if its a bee or wasp. One of the leaf-cutter bees stuck to a Drosera filiformis, thread-leaved sundew. This carnivorous plant…
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Spotted Dweller of the Coast
A very vocal shore bird this time of year makes you think there’s a nest nearby.Spotted Sandpipers are the shore birds you’ll see inland. In Brooklyn, that means the edges of Prospect Lake and Sylvan Water in Green-Wood host them during migration. Teeterbird is one of their common names, for their habit of bobbing their…
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Whose Future?
What a filthy week it has been: The bodies of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria in the Rio Grande, who fled the savage violence in their homeland, caused in no small part by the United States’ long and terrible interference there, only to die at the unforgiving “Trump Wall” of white…
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Question Marks
Polygonia interrogationis , the Question Mark butterfly. The wings need to be closed to see the mark in question. I think it’s more of a semi-colon. The similar Comma (Polygonia comma) has the “comma” mark but not the dot. Mud-puddling. Everyone does it, but butterflies are so conspicuous they get noticed doing it. Insects need…
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Beach Patrol
An old map I once saw named this section of Staten Island’s southwestern shore “Red Bank”. Herring Gull. One of the Raritan Bay channel markers (“red-right-return” to the sailors) had an even bigger gull on it. Indeed, the world’s biggest: a Greater Black-backed Gull, who made a sortie after a fish-laden Osprey. The Osprey held…
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Backyard and Beyond 