-
Raptor Wednesday
It seems like there are American Kestrels everywhere. But how many? Without banding or electronic tracking, I can’t say for sure. But: There were three individual males, a new record, seen together from the windows here recently. There was much tail-pumping amongst the trio as they perched near each other on building and tree. The…
-
Limbs Ahoy!
There’s a lot of pre-Thanksgiving activity going on around here. Meanwhile, here is the view from inside a weeping beech.
-
American Kestrel News
On Thursday, the first snowfall of the winter caught the city off-guard. Unprotected by congestion pricing, Manhattan, flooded with prowling car service vehicles, came to a traffic standstill. In the boroughs, lots of limbs were sheared off trees from the wet heavy snow and wind. The pictures above are from Wednesday. The male American Kestrel…
-
Leviathan?
“What is to be done?” asked Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky in the title of his 1863 novel about the situation of Russian. Chernyshevsky wrote, from prison, something of a “handbook of radicalism,” postulating a sort of utopian peasant/commune/industrial socialism. Perhaps, though, the most important thing about the book was the burning titular question, which fired debate…
-
The Tigers of Wrath?
True, they look more like lionesses. I stumbled on this in Green-Wood recently. It’s on the backside of the tombstone for Leon Golub and Nancy Spero, twentieth century artists. I just happened to be passing. Green-Wood has more real animals than artistic representations of them. This is one of the most notable:This bear marks the…
-
Ravens & Red-Tails
Three times in the last month I’ve seen Common Ravens and Red-tailed Hawks chasing each other over Green-Wood. From an excellent source, I heard of another aerial ruckus visible overhead while I was elsewhere. The last time was last Sunday. We saw a pair of ravens this time. Then a few minutes later in the…
-
Portrait of A White-throated Sparrow
Zonotrichia albicollis.With some seeds still a-bill. These leaf-kicking sparrows should be around all winter, their “oh-sweet-canada” or, for patriots, “oh-sam-peabody” call echoing through the bare woods. This is one of the tan-striped forms. The white-striped forms have a bold white supercillium (eyebrow).(If you strictly translated this bird’s binomial, you’d get “white-banded thrush,” but whatever.)
-
Raptor Wednesday
This Red-tailed Hawk in Green-Wood picked up a songbird and took into a pine to pluck. The prey was tiny, possibly a kinglet, hardly seemed worth the effort, and yet…In the top picture, you can see some feathers blowing off to the right. A clump came down to me.Same area, earlier. There were two, sometimes…
-
Winter Wrens
When last we saw a Winter Wren in these pages, it was dead and being devoured by a Tufted Titmouse. But I’m sure you didn’t think I’d leave it at that. Here are two Troglodytes hiemalis foraging in proximity. These things are tiny: 0.3 – 0.4 oz (8-12 grams).Insect-eaters, mostly, but they’ll also scarf up…
-
Mushroom Monday
These long-format (16:9 aspect ratio) images look better on the big screen, so click on them once to expand. Usually I shoot 3:2,the old 35mm film standard; sometimes I crop these down for detail. I’m sure you’ll see some 1:1 images around here soon (sounds just right for a woodchuck portrait).Meanwhile, more stinkhorns! This time…
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Backyard and Beyond 