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.”

  • Butorides virescens

    An adult Green Heron. There were two. So let’s hope for some offspring, which have not been unknown in Brooklyn’s green heart. You are wondering, Mr. Bond, why this bird is named the Green Heron? Well, there’s kinda-sorta some green there on the back-ish. The species was formerly called the Green-backed Heron (this category including…

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  • Raptor Wednesday

    Red tail feathers coming in! This Buteo jamaicensis looks like it was one of last year’s fledglings. They don’t get their brick-red tails until they’re a year old. Also a good view of the cummerbund-like belly-band that most of our best-dressed eastern Red-tailed Hawks sport.

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  • Whose Woods?

    In Sweden, the woods belong to the red wood ants (Formica). They build large mounds, are essential forest managers, and aren’t afraid of taking on bigger critters.A young Kopparödla or Slowworm (Anguis fragilis) is being taken down. (Movie) Duncan takes a closer look at one of the mounds. This was the last we saw of…

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  • Swedish Snapshots

      Such beauty in the world! And such baseness! There was good news from Ireland this week, when one of the misogynist whips of what was once the state church was tossed aside, yet the U.S. still suffers under the brute nastiness of the Orange Demagogue. The American gestapo is wrenching children from their parents…

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  • Tree Swallows

    Tachycineta bicolor. The problem is staying on. Remember how the male American Kestrel bunched up his claws so not to dig into his partner’s back? Here, the male bites some head feathers. Ouch!

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  • Even More Swedish Birds

    Ladusvala. (Barn) Swallow (Hirundo rustica).This is most common species of swallow in the world. The European subspecies H. rustica rustica is very much less rufus underneath than the New World H. rustica rythrogaster and has a longer tail.Here’s another profile that should look familiar.The Eurasian Nuthatch (Sitta europaea).Nötväcka.Whooper Swans at distance, through a window just…

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  • Raptor Wednesday

    The male of the #BrooklynKestrels pair is stashing prey in a rotted-out knot in his favorite perching tree. This photo is through the screen, rain, and foliage. But with those two little songbird feet sticking up like an amateur gangland corpse disposal, you get the drift. Have seen a few bodies cached here since discovering…

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  • Forecast: Birds

    A very few of the birds noted on recent trips to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, Central Park, and Green-Wood Cemetery:Exploration of nest box at Jamaica Bay’s West Pond. Troglodytes aedon. And then suddenly there were three of these bubbly-voiced House Wrens zooming about. But don’t fall for the small-is-cute thing. I reported this collar. Waiting…

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  • Mammal Monday

    Sciurus vulgaris.I think it’s ice-cream…

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