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City Nature Challenges
The City Nature Challenge starts tomorrow. Are you in? Here’s a good description of it: “Cities around the world will be competing to see who can make the most observations of nature, find the most species, and engage the most people.” The event measures how many people enter observations, and how many observations individuals make,…
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Raptor Wednesday
American Kestrel male way up there looking for lunch.Ditto this Merlin. Even higher, for this bird is near the top of the reputed tallest tree in Green-Wood, a tuliptree (yellow poplar). Same day as the kestrels above and below.This is the local #BrooklynKestrels male.He has prey.The pair cache prey on this roof, under the solar…
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Pipilo erythrophthalmus
Eastern Towhee, often more heard than seen because they like the shadows of the shrubs and the woodland floor and the thickness of the scrub. “Pipilo” comes from the Latin for to peep or to chirp. This is a male, seen in Green-Wood.In the southeast, you can find them with white eyes. Up here they…
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Earth Day
This beat-up skull comes courtesy of a Great Horned Owl. The owl chomped this down and then spit it back up after the bird’s battery acid stomach had a go at it. I think these might be the remains of a Grey Squirrel skull. Found with plenty of grey hair smushed into the cavities. Cleaned up…
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Some Outtakes
As you can imagine, I take more pictures than I ever use here on the blog. Common Grackle gathering nesting material. These birds like to build their nests in thick pines, often with others of their ilk nearby in the same tree. Brown Thrashers are more often heard than seen. They don’t spend much time…
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Tree & Butterfly
In late December, I came across this fine, puzzling tree with a thick bole and garly bark. Here’s what I posted on the bark. Several people were intrigued, so I put up some more photos. Now comes the reveal. Talk about sprung! Looks like Yoshino cherry (Prunus x yedoensis). And fluttering amongst the flowers while…
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Bombus griseocollis
One of the few flying insects seen at Morris Arboretum recently. The Brown-belted Bumble Bee. Probably a female, who has overwintered and is getting ready to start a new colony.The second most common Bombus species in the mid-Atlantic but scarcer further north. Note that the animal is using two of its legs to scrape across…
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Even More Evidence
Pictures from the last week here in Brooklyn and northwestern Philadelphia. As spring continues, so does the most corrupt administration in American history, doing deep and lasting damage to the country, our democracy, and the rule of law.
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How About Some Turtles
Recently seen: Some Spotted Turtles. The last pictured was tiny, perhaps 1.5″ down the shell (head to tail).Painted Turtles.At a whole other scale, a veteran Snapping Turtle krakening the shallows. *** The new abolitionism: a fascinating profile of Ruth Wilson Gilmore.
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More Spring Beauty
Timing is everything. Last Thursday, a cool spring day, in northwestern Philadelphia, things were just on the cusp. These Sanguinaria canadensis, bloodroot, were waiting for the sun.These Trilliums, too.Ah, but look carefully! Thalictrum thalictroides, rue anemone.Cardamine concatenata, the cutleaved toothwort, crow’s toes, pepper root or purple-flowered toothwort.The sun did come out in the afternoon… Stylophorum…
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Backyard and Beyond 