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B.B. Cuckoo
The Black-billed Cuckoo is relatively elusive, which is surprising for such a long-tailed creature. “Sluggish and secretive” says Cornell’s All About Birds about Coccyzus erythropthalmus. I was surprised on Friday when a popped into eye-level view at Brooklyn Bridge Park. I see the Yellow-billed (C. americanus) more often — and that isn’t that often. Both…
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Weekend Kestrels
The female is rarely seen these days. She emerges from the cornice nest and flies up to the London Plane on 41st Street to take food bought up by her mate. Here she briefly perches on the avenue London Plane.It gets gory from here… The male with prey in the fog.An hour later, the fog…
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Rust Never Sleeps
Cedar-apple rust (Gymnosporangium juniperivirginianae) just past its peak gelatinous stage on an Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. These telial horns fire off spores during the wet spring season. The spores float off, perhaps to find a rose family tree like an apple or crabapple (Malus) for the the next stage…
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More Swedish Birds
Skata. Magpie (Pica pica).Makers of massive stick nests.Björktrast. Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris). Like one of our fledgling Robins (T. migratorius) on steroids.And speaking of thrushes, the Common Blackbird (T. merula). Koltrast: the Swedish national bird. Cue “blackbird singing in the dead of night” — our Robins start up around 4 a.m.Kaja. Jackdaw (Corvus monedula). On the…
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Raptor Wednesday
I wrote about the local Kestrels for the Brooklyn Bird Club’s excellent Clapper Rail. Several days of hunting portrayed here. By now, I guess that there are young in the nest.
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Gulled
Black-headed Gull, Common (or Mew) Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, and European Herring Gull. (A single click will make this picture larger.)Lesser Black-backed and Herring comparison. Yellow legs versus pink legs, in addition to the size and wing color. Some outtakes.
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Mammal Monday
This European or Brown Hare (Lepus europaeus) was as big as most of the dogs in Göteborg. We were surprised to see it on a backstreet one evening. I think some of the locals were, too. The species has been expanding its range in Sweden.Red Squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris).Like our Eastern Greys, which have become invasive…
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Svenska fåglar
Större hackspett. Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major). That belly! Spotted in Göteborg’s Slottsskogen park.Sädesärla. White Wagtail (Motacilla alba). Spotted everywhere.Knipa. Common Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula). These are females, and if you look closely you’ll see they’re banded. They were in the zoo’s pond. Others were seen in Göteborg’s canals, as well as on lake Vänern.Bofink. Chaffinch…
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International Bird Migration Day
In Ruth Padel’s On Migration: Dangerous Journeys and the Living World, the Aeneid is offered as the great story of the present century: “the displaced man who has seen his city burn and has lost one identity forever must make a new home and new identity in an unknown land.” Padel’s book is a modern…
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Patterns
On a clear day, you can see Labrador from about 38,000 feet. On Monday, the place was still frozen. Our plane was somewhere near the Quebec border; of course, it may even have been Quebec. It’s hard to see most borders on the face of the earth. A meandering river, thawed in parts, with…
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