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Ravens!
Four Common Grackles chase a Common Raven near Green-Wood Cemetery’s neo-gothic entrance. The Grackles nest in pines in this area. As soon as this Raven was escorted off-site, I turned around to see another of the huge corvids further in the cemetery. Then, I heard them. The Class of 2019 has six members! More pictures…
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A.C. Bent & Co. on Raptors
Arthur Cleveland Bent published twenty-one volumes in his Life Histories of North American Birds between 1919 and 1968. The last two volumes were posthumous. They originally came out in the U.S. National Museum Bulletin. Later they were republished by Dover. There’s an internet edition now. The Dover paperbacks are a standard sight in used book store natural…
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Recent Birds
Spotted Sandpiper. A few have been working their way around the edges of the ponds in Green-Wood.Black-throated Blue Warbler.Eastern Kingbird.Hooded Warbler female.Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Female, much plainer than the showy male.Most of our migrants are insectivores, but these big-beaks are seed-crushers. *** George Boorujy’s Gang of Warblers is now available as a print. Very reasonably priced,…
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Red-headed Excavations
This Red-headed Woodpecker kept going in head-first and emerging tail-first to toss wood scraps away. This was in Virginia. It’s unusual to see one of these in NYC, although sometimes juveniles will show up — they don’t have the flag-like color blocking. During the winter of ’13-’14, a juvenile spent the winter in Green-Wood and…
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Herps
We were hoping this Northern Watersnake would keep coming, passing under the boat launch dock we were standing on.But this Nerodia sipedon wasn’t playing. Instead it took shelter in these rocks, amid crabs, oysters, and periwinkles, peeping out occasionally to see if we were still there. Can you spot it?Here’s what we thought was a…
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Raptor Wednesday
An Osprey circled over Sylvan Water looking for sign of fish below. Sylvan Water, haunt of, at various times, cormorants, kingfishers, and herons, was not producing breakfast for this huge raptor.Note the toes, swept back under the tail. When these birds dive, they move their feet forward to strike and grasp their fishy prey. Shallow…
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A Behavioral Note
There are no points for brains when it comes to testosterone. During breeding season, some male birds repeatedly attack their own reflections. They think the reflections are other males. I’ve seen a Rudy-crowned kinglet go after himself in a highly reflective sculpture.Towhees are known for it this, too. This one did it to a line…
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Mammal Monday
Telephoto edition.There were at least two young squirrels in here. *** Interesting programs at the Linnaean Society and Brooklyn Bird Club tomorrow. Unfortunately at the same time. The LSNY is a double-header: Sara Lewis on fireflies, followed by J. Drew Lanham on the art of writing natural history. The BBC has Tessa Boase on the…
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The Fate of Us?
Environmentalist eschatology has it that the world is ending. Nature? I think not. The human world as we’ve known it, undoubtedly — that has been the pattern for as long as there have been humans; it’s just a question of timing. But the planet will abide. Much simplified and profoundly poisoned by humans, true, but…
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Recent Birds
Look who’s already hatched here in Brooklyn, while birds like Baltimore Orioles have only just begun to build their nests. We have baby falcons at 55 Water St., too. Future eaters of Robins? Ah, well, everybody’s got to make a living.Most warblers keep moving on through to nest further north, but some like the Yellow…
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Backyard and Beyond 