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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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Audubon II
There is darn little art without political economy. Welcome back to another way of looking at John James Audubon. In his book, Audubon’s Elephant, detailing the difficulties of getting the double elephant edition of Birds of America published in Britain, Duff Hart-Davis says Audubon’s portfolio weighed a hundred pounds. Hart-Davis doesn’t inform us that when Audubon referred to…
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Turning Tern
Do you have as much difficulty with terns as I do?This is a Forster’s (Sterna forsteri) in (mostly) non-breeding plumage. A good field mark is that dark mask and pale nape. Also most helpful: not moving for a good long view. * The Anatomy of Liberal Melancholy is food for thought, as is this appreciation…
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Happy Birthday, John J.
It’s Audubon’s 232nd today. Backyard and Beyond will be noting this in several ways over the next couple of days. Some of you may be surprised to learn that John James Audubon retired to Manhattan. In 1841, upper New York County was still pretty wild, as the city more or less ended at 14th Street. Wishing…
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Painted Bunting
Originally posted on Backyard and Beyond: A rare, resplendent adult male Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris) has been in Prospect Park for two weeks now, attracting an enormous amount of media attention and hordes of viewers. Note this big seed-cracking bunting bill. The bird has stuck to the area around and atop the new ice-skating complex,…
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