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American Dagger
There is so much going on “in” an oak tree. The biologist E.O. Wilson has written that you could spend a lifetime voyaging like Magellan around a single tree, discovering all the interrelated life associated with it. Quercus is definitely one genus where this applies very well. This British study found 284 insects associated with…
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The Bee’s Tongue
Never mind the knees, how about those tongues? Check out the tongue between the down-turned antennae. (Those antennae, by the way, are hugely important sensory organs: they can touch, taste, and smell.) There are short-tongued and long-tongued bee species.This leaf-cutter bee seems to be tasting this stem.This one explored numerous leaf edges. The tip of…
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Raptor Wednesday
Look, up in the sky! It’s a… oh, let’s cut to the chase, comix book fans. It is a mature Bald Eagle. A pair have been nesting in the area for a couple of years now. (Remember, in 1974 there were no breeding pairs in New York State AT ALL. In 2017, there were 323…
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Another Snout
This makes four American Snouts, Libytheana carinenta, I’ve seen so far this year in Brooklyn. That’s four times as many as I’ve ever seen. This one, unfortunately, was dead on the sidewalk.
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More Exuviae
An emergent damselfly next to the husk of its former, aquatic life stage. When they first emerge as their adult, flying form, they don’t have much color. Their wings unfurl and harden off, like their new exoskeleton. They can’t fly immediately.When they can fly, they will sometimes take shelter in trees, bushes, etc., to finish…
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Two Degrees
“What happens if one changes a systems’s parameters — the temperature, the weather, the climate? What will collapse and what will endure? Who will live and who will die?” A two-degree rise in global mean temperature, which now sounds optimistically low for the results of global warming this century, may be compared with effects of…
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Hyphantria cunea
The Fall Webworm caterpillars are out in force this year. Bush Terminal.Transmitter Park. (Droppings on the leaf to the right.)Down the street. Yesterday was Henry THoreau’s 202 birthday. I’ve written quite a bit about him here over the years. He remains a vital beacon in this vicious era.
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Tilt-a-nest
Northern Mockingbird nesting. A late brood or a second one? The angle here, by the way, is accurately represented. I wonder if they built it this way or it somehow shifted once they got it going. If you think these sweetgum pods look odd, you’d be right. This is a different species from our native…
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Exuviae
Wait… what? This Rambur’s Forktail damselfly is perched on the exuviae of a dragonfly.Another view of the male Rambur’s green-blue color pattern. Dragon- and damselfly eggs are laid on or near water. The larval stage is aquatic. After a season, or a year (or more depending on species and location), the aquatic nymph crawls out…
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Raptor Wednesday
The #BrooklynKestrels. Mother and daughters. The young ones tend to look plumper than she does, but I can’t see this in this particular picture. She’s still bringing them food — and this roof is still a larder. They fly down to it, out-of-sight, and come up with a pice of something. There have been some…
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