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Incoming
With Coney Island’s iconic Parachute Jump and Kingsborough Community College’s architectural folly in the background, a trio of American Oystercatchers reveal their presence.No subtly with this boldly-patterned species. Plus that long red bill, so cartoon-like, and their rackety vocalizations.Around the corner on the tidal flats, another one sported red leg-bands. It was too far away…
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How To Bathe, Part 2
Birds may bathe everyday, and some passerines have been recorded bathing five or more times a day. In winter and in arid locations, access to water can obviously limit this frequency. “In order to make the flow of water efficient, the movement of the feather tracts is combined with other movements in the following sequence:…
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Heralds
From Dead Horse Bay to Marine Park to Green-Wood. From the top, springtime is icumen in: American Oystercatcher, Osprey, Killdeer, Pine Warbler, Golden-crowned Warbler.
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How To Bathe, Part 1
First of all, the water can’t be too deep. You have to be able to wade in (and out).Frankly, there are only limited places you can do that in Green-Wood.The Dell Water has lately been overflowing it’s banks on one side. So that looks just right…
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Concrete
If there’s a “they” in the distant geological future, they’re sure going to wonder about the layer of concrete surrounding the world. Maybe they’ll think we worshipped it. They’d be right, wouldn’t they? Check out this hypothesis on the locking-in of atmospheric carbon in equatorial mountain building/limestone production, which these authors suggest led to the…
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Kestrel Action
This silhouette: large-headed, full-bodied, longish tail. This is the local American Kestrel female. She’s larger and rounder than the male. The pair are mating now. They’ll do this multiple times a day. They can do it hundreds of time a breeding season.More falcon silhouette: long tail, arch of wings, nearly boomerang-like. She was moving from…
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Red-ish
Red-bellied Woodpecker. Another regular winter sight, often heard first. This one landed in the horse chestnut the trio of White-breasted Nuthatches were working over. Gleaners do like company. The multi-species flocking behavior of winter is always heartening to see.
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Spring Slithers In
The spring equinox was hit yesterday about 6 p.m. in our time zone. So welcome to the first day of spring!Meanwhile, last Saturday morning there was still ice out at Great Swamp NWR. There was not a skunk cabbage to be seen, but a few frogs were calling, unseen, echoing in the watery woods.It’s a…
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Raptor Wednesday
Merlins like the lookouts.This one was way up there grooming.Of course that altitude makes for a photographic challenge, what with the sun, the other trees, the snow-slopped mucky slope…If you open up this image, you can see that there are a lot of flying things up there with the grooming falcon. Some kind of fly…
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Spring Flies In
On Thursday, I saw two Phoebes in widely spaced parts of Green-Wood Cemetery. Clouds of insects were visible, too, so we know what these fly-catchers were hunting. The next day, when the temperature got close to 70, reports of Pine Warblers, usually the first warbler species of the year, came in from the cemetery as…
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Backyard and Beyond 