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.”

  • Thryothorus ludovicianus

    A pair of Carolina Wrens were exploring a slope in Green-Wood.No crevice went unexplored in the search for insects, eggs, and cocoons..

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  • Mammal Monday

    I haven’t seen one of these people in far too long. Marmota monax: groundhog, woodchuck, whistlepig, chuckling (when young).Oh, yeah, Rodentia: all in the teeth.

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  • Make Your Own Metaphors

    Turtle with a leech latched onto its…brain? Some people say the Senator from Oligarchy, Mitch McConnell, whose career is based on an infusion of foreign cash, looks like a turtle. I wouldn’t want to insult a turtle with that comparison. But the miserable old cynic sure acts like a leech on democracy… so there’s that.

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  • Woodcock Madness

    Originally posted on Backyard and Beyond: A few of the nine American Woodcock I saw on Thursday in Prospect Park. Or, in this one’s case:Outside the park. On Vanderbilt St. in Windsor Terrace. I herded this one off the street. A stalking cat gave me the side-eye for doing so.The bird landed in the only patch of…

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  • Kestrel Mania, Part XXX

    The American Kestrels were extremely busy yesterday morning. During Wednesday’s storm, I saw neither skin nor feather of them, as expected. But the male was out bright and early in the rich tones of dawn on Thursday. He soon flew over to the chimney, and several minutes later the female landed on the nearby roof…

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  • Dawn Kestrel

    Sunrise on the American Kestrel male this morning, a few minutes before he and the female mated on their favorite roof-top pipe.

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  • Raptor Wednesday

    An old Red-tailed Hawk nest being refurbished. Over a couple of weekends, I watched Red-tailed Hawks bringing new sticks to this nest.The last time I was watching, one hawk perched nearby.While this one did all the work. Unseen here are the Blue Jays buzzing the hawk as it scouted a nearby tree for nesting material.…

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  • Mammal Monday

    The front door.Looked too small for a backdoor, so let’s call it a window. (No mammals were woken up for these photos.]

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  • American Kestrel Update

    Tis the season for copulation.Note how the male’s talons are bunched up. He can’t, after all, grab hold of her back with those sharp claws. I noticed this in an Instragramer’s photo of mating Osprey recently, where the scale was rather larger but the principle the same. Bird mating is brief. The balancing act —…

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  • Anniversary!

    I launched this blog on this day in 2010. Good gravy, has it been this long? That was such a red-letter day, I posted twice! So thank you, readers: 182 of you get these posts delivered to your mailbox; 330 via WordPress Reader; an unknown number via other means through various bookmarking applications. But if…

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