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Slicing Up the Sky
On a clear day, we can see New Jersey. Straight across is Newark, over New York Bay and Bayonne and Newark Bay. Newark International is there too. Glancing northwards, as above, the twin cities of Jersey City and Manhattan finger the sky. This particularly clear morning was all sliced by condensation trails, better known as…
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Spider Year
It’s the one year anniversary, more or less, of the spider who stayed out in the cold. This big Araneus diadematus orb-weaver had her web(s) outside one of our windows for three months last fall.We only saw her eating once in that time. All B&B spider adventures can be seen here. The current indoor spider…
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Bat Outta Green-Wood
About three weeks ago, I was surprised by a bat in Green-Wood batting around in the early afternoon. It zipped about in a clearing for a moment or three. It was an Eastern Red (Lasiurus borealis). Too bad I was in the bat’s shadow. Just heard about a more recent sighting: warm days can bring…
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Raptor Wednesday
This was quite a drama. Several Blue Jays chasing a Sharp-shinned Hawk from tree to tree in Green-Wood. The hawk couldn’t escape the persecution.There was no perch free from the jays.The noise, of course, was terrific. There’s nothing like Blue Jays for alarums and excursions of the vocal kind. The hawk eventually moved on. It’s…
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Tufted
When last we saw a Tufted Titmouse on this blog, it was eating a dead Winter Wren. That was surprising. But here we’re back to a more regular diet, of seeds and nuts in winter; this bird briefly emerged from a thick conglomeration of shrubbery with something edible in bill.There were three in the thicket,…
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Revealed by The Fall
One day this summer I saw and heard several Baltimore Orioles around this linden. It was so thickly leafed I couldn’t see a nest, but it was pretty clear there was one in there.Woven from grasses and human garbage, suspended like a flapper’s purse. These things always surprise me because they seem so improbable as…
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On Heredity
Carl Zimmer’s She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity is an essential read in our present moment. Genetic essentialism and ignorance; fundamentalism and fascism; the revival of eugenic racist thought and strategy by the Republicans; all these combine in the vital necessity of a history and understanding of biological and…
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Late Skipper
November 7th was a warm day. This skipper could smell the buddleia as well as I could, probably better.The double-barreled tongue can be seen here relatively well.
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Five Points
A late-blooming, ligulate-headed Asteraceae to grace your groaning board.
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Backyard and Beyond 