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Audubon and Murals
[By popular demand, here’s the short talk I gave in celebration of John James Audubon’s birthday to the Riverside Oval Association and friends last week. A good time was had by all, I think, and the cake was delicious. Photos are from the same day: I walked around looking at some the Audubon Murals in…
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Swallows and Swifts
Dr. Johnson, in his 59th year, 1768 (per wee Jaimie Boswell): “He seemed pleased to talk of natural philosophy. ‘That woodcocks, (said he,) fly over the northern countries, is proved, because they have been observed at sea. Swallows certainly sleep all the winter. A number of them conglobulate together, by flying round and round, then…
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Beginnings
Oh, spring, spring, you are so fast! Poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans).One of the lindens (Tilia). Some galls are already planted on these. As with the leaves immediately below, these were windfalls. Pin oak (Quercus palustris).Beech (Fagus) about to blow.Mockernut hickory (Carya tomentosa) already blown. * Share the pre-existing condition of being human? Then the GOP…
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Snake in the Moss
Northern Water Snake (Nerodia sipedon). Saw a half dozen basking off of the boardwalk. This common snake, second only to the Garter in abundance regionally, is, like that species, somewhat varied in form. You can see stripes on this youngish one, but most Great Swamp specimens look very dark and unmarked (as they dry in…
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Raptor Wednesday
A pair of Bald Eagles immediately after mating.We heard them before we saw them.Haliaeetus leucocephalus make some very un-eagle-like sounds. (That’s because they are usually dubbed over with the calls of Red-tailed Hawks in the professional bullshit business of entertainment.) The sound that alerted us to their presence is described on the Cornell sound page…
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Trillium erectum
We only saw these purple trilliums on the return leg of our walk. The invasive Japanese Barberry (Berbers thunbergii), which is all over the trailside, is about to shade over these maroon beauties. Did it also protect them from the deer? This is one of the most common Trillium species found here in the east. It also…
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For Roger Tory Peterson
Originally posted on Backyard and Beyond: “A golden bird of wooded swamps.” — RTP on the Prothonatary Warbler (Protonotaria citrea), photographed in the Ravine yesterday in Prospect Park.Yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the first publication of Roger Tory Peterson’s A Field Guide to the Birds. Now, I don’t doubt that humans have been watching…
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May Day
Some mammals for Monday and May Day.Did you ever wonder why they, and we, are called mammals? I have to admit I never did until last week. Linnaeus came up with the term Mammalia in 1758, from the Latin mammae, meaning the breasts. This we all know. Yet everything else Linnaeus named is based on…
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Audubon III
Welcome back to several ways of looking at John James Audubon. Lucy Bakewell was born in Burton-upon-Trent, Straffordshire, England, on January 18, 1787. Seventeen years later, by then translated to Pennsylvania with her family, she met her neighbor John James Audubon. They were married for 43 years beginning in 1808. Then she survived him by…
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Save The Swamp
And flush the toilet. “Swamp” was always a poor choice to describe our pervasive political corruption. Swamps, after all, are fantastic habitats. (Not that we have much swamp in NYC; that’s grassland above.) The word that best describes our pervasive political corruption, now gone into overdrive with the naked kleptocracy of the Trump family and…
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Backyard and Beyond 