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Quiscalus quiscula
Another day, another Common Grackle youngster being served up a moth for lunch. Note how the young bird’s plumage lacks the iridescence of the mature bird, and is a drab gray rather than blue-black, except in the tail feathers. (That’s plastic tarp they’re hanging out on, laid down to smother phragmites.) This, about a remarkably…
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Ebony Jewelwing
Flying moth-like on broad dark wings, their abdomens metallic green or blue, depending on the light, Calopteryx maculata are probably the most recognizable of our damselflies.Males are pictured above. These and the females below were spotted around the Cross River in the Ward Pound Ridge Reserve in Westchester County. I’ve not seen them in NYC*.The…
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Storm King
Storm King Arts Center is a large outdoor sculpture gallery. However, we went specifically for the tall grass meadows. And were they lush and fecund:The top left tip of this Calder had a singing Eastern Bluebird on it.
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Tree Chipper
We usually see Eastern Chipmunks on the ground, but this is your periodical reminder that they’re fine tree-climbers. That’s how they predate bird nests. This one is about 15 feet up. Cheeks bulging with chow.
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Mystery Sign
A living creature is behind this paw-like pattern, a shadow thrown through water. What do you think is going on here? (Your answers will be posted later today, along with a picture of the culprit.) Voila! Hey thanks for playing! Most you were in the right place; a shadow cast by a water strider, in…
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Cross River Crawdaddies
Decapoda use their tails to scoot backwards underwater. This one actually back-jetted into Karl’s hands. (It was returned unharmed, if discombobulated by all the media attention.)Cross River, running through Ward Pound Ridge Reservation, is a-crawling with crayfish. This was one of the smaller ones. The others were much less red. Perhaps this one had just…
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Bumble in a Cactus Flower
Bull in a china shop? Bumblebees really rumble inside prickly pear cactus flowers. Linebackers carrying the ball, or two of them: pollen clumped with nectar on the hind legs.
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Plathemis lydia
Male Common Whitetail.Female. The male above is actually a young one. He won’t get his chalky white “tail,” or abdomen, until he gets a little older. When that happens, they do stand out. Here, from the archive of summers past, are some of the males in all their obviousness: This of course assumes that our…
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Northern Rough-winged Swallows
That’s a mouthful of a common name, but then Stelgidopteryx serripennis is a binomial tongue-exercise as well. We found five fledglings perched over the water. They were being fed at their perches and in mid-air, with the older and/or bolder siblings flying out to meet their busy parents. You can see the cinnamon color on…
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Ravens!
The Common Raven (Corvus corax) family of Brooklyn numbers four. The first I heard of them was near the end of May, when the City Birder spotted them in Green-Wood Cemetery. I first saw them on June 9th. It was 6:15 a.m. and they were turning a floppy right over the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal…
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