Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

  • Raptor Wednesday

    Cooper Hawk amidst the Rock Doves!A dangerous ballet in the sky for the flock, which has the confusion of numbers on their communal side.There was no killing in this swirl, nor in the one seen the very next day in the same general area.Nor in the hawk/pigeon flurry yesterday before the snow flurries.In fact, when…

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  • Winter Killdeer

    Rocks, Ring-billed Gulls, and hey, a Killdeer! (You can’t see the rats inside the rocks, but when they scurry around in broad daylight, you know the tubular rodents are all over; suckers have always loved waterfronts.) Bush Terminal Park had breeding Killdeer last year.

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  • Pollination Reminder

    This Sierra Club lecture on Wednesday looks great: *SIERRA CLUB NEW YORK CITY GROUP SUSTAINABILITY SERIES 2019* *WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13: BIRDS, BEES AND BUGS KEEP OUR GARDENS HEALTHY* Michael Hagen – Curator of the Rock Garden & Native Plant Garden, NY Botanical Garden Timothy Leslie – Associate Professor, Department of Biology, LIU Brooklyn Heather Liljengren…

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  • Captive Gyr

    The largest falcon, Gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus).* Birds of the tundra and elsewhere northwards. Occasionally they drift down into the U.S.I’ve never seen one in the wild in North America. I have seen a dark morph in Iceland. (They come dramatically white like this, gray, and dark.)This one is all jessed up and has no place…

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  • Dawn Corvids

    One morning recently, a great parliament of crows flew over the apartment heading towards the bay. I estimated fifty at least. They boiled around the air column over the empty parking lot of the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, before turning right to head northish along the coast of Brooklyn. They must have been roosting inland.…

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  • Are We Getting the Blue Jays All Wrong?

    These boldly colored birds are usually described in negative, highly moralistic terms. Cue up J.J. Audubon: “Who could imagine that a form so graceful, arrayed by nature in a garb so resplendent, should harbour so much mischief;–that selfishness, duplicity, and malice should form the moral accompaniments of so much physical perfection!”In my experience, they’re actually…

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  • Raptor Wednesday on Thursday

    First of all, remember yesterday’s images of a partially russet-tailed American Kestrel male? This one, found about ten blocks away, has the more standard full panoply of russet tail feathers.He’s also not as russety on the chest.In these images, you can also just see a claw peeking from his chest. He’s doing the one-footed stand…

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  • Raptor Wednesday

    Let me introduce you to two different American Kestrel males, who have been spotted several times ten blocks apart along the western edge of Green-Wood in the last few months. First up today is this one, with a nicely russet chest. Rather more prominent, however, is his tail:The male standard, for both adult and juvenile,…

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  • Ravens

    I usually hear them before I see them. Brooklyn’s Common Ravens regularly fly across the bow, the view from here down to the coast of Upper New York Bay. They are generally quite vocal, which helps to distinguish them from the crows from afar. In this case, the somewhat swine-like krongking was right overhead. The bird…

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  • Mammal Monday

    If it’s quiet enough, not generally a condition found within the bounds of NYC, a squirrel gnawing on a walnut will ring throughout the area.The eating of buds, on the other paw, is much more subtle. You may only notice when things start falling on your head.

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