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.”

  • May Day

    Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea).

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  • Just This

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  • NYC Wildflower Week

    Hear ye, hear ye! NYCWW will be celebrating it’s 10th anniversary May 11-20. There are lots of free events. Including one of my Listening Tours, a silent walk through Prospect Park at dawn to listen to the sounds of spring migration. Yes, that’s 5:30 a.m., but don’t let that scare you: you will be amazed…

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  • Kestrels

    This male is a hell of a provider. I’ve seen three feedings per day recently, in which the male will bring prey to a perch, pluck and eat some, and then noisily give to the female. Caught a glimpse of her. She’s coming out of the nest to take food. He has popped into the…

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  • Portrait of a Kingfisher

    Female Belted Kingfisher. I half wondered if the binomial Megaceryle alcyon had anything to do with big hair…. The genus name is from the Greek for “great sea bird,” or a king fisher, if you will. The specific epithet is from a Greek myth: Alcyon mourned so for her drowned husband that the gods turned…

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  • Trilliums and Trout Lilies

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  • Raptor Wednesday

    Other American Kestrels. Six or seven blocks away from home as the falcon flies is Green-Wood Cemetery. From one corner of the cemetery, you can see the top corner of my apartment building, so naturally I wonder if the #BrooklynKestrels pair have hunted there.This is a male I saw recently in Green-Wood, above Sylvan Water.…

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  • Springing Forth

    One of the diurnal fireflies. Great Egret. This was not a bright day and the bird was far away, but more recently one sailed by in front of the kestrel observatory we call our apartment and the bird’s wings were like clean sheets flapping in the breeze.Mourning Cloaks, Caggage Whites, and possibly one other species…

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  • Pond Life and Death

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  • Earth Day

    I’m a 24/7/365 celebrator of Earth — doubters could start with oxygen — but here, for the official Earth Day, are some of the avian life forms who’ve visited my part of the ol’ oblate spheroid this week.For instance, this Summer Tanager (Piranga rubra) hawking for insects over water for days. Wowza!And this Indigo Bunting…

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