Green-Wood’s big pines attract Common Grackle for nest-building. They hide the nests well way up there. But there can never be any doubt about whether or not you have Grackles.

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There’s a new female American Kestrel in the local mix. This one isn’t banded, has heavy markings, and, most notably, a tail that looks like it went through the wringer. Let’s call her Tangle-tail, a designation that will fall out with molting. I’ve seen her recently in Green-Wood (what would be roughly 6th Ave &…

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The pinker ones are more photogenic, but any population of Claytonia virginica will have a range of color-forms.

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Ten years ago, I saw my first Green-Wood Cemetery Bald Eagle. Not over the cemetery, but perched, briefly, on a pine within it. The bird flew when the limb it was one broke off. I’ve seen a few more since. Last Tuesday, I saw two together for the first time. I followed them around for…

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I found this Gray Squirrel a few minutes after spotting the Groundhog I posted pictures of yesterday. Later, looking in an old guidebook to North American mammals, I noted that Groundhogs are in the squirrel family, Sciuridae. In fact, they are the biggest of our squirrels. Humph!

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This Groundhog’s den is near Sophie Calle’s Here Lies the Secrets of The Visitors of Green-Wood Cemetery, which lets people write down and slip their secrets into an underground vault. Making this the Woodchuck Who Knew Too Much?

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