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In Winter
The dried fruit capsule of the Horse-Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) is distinctively prickly. I just started a class on Native Flora in Winter at the New York Botanical Garden. I hope to share some of what I learn in the coming weeks. Let’s start with: the mints (Lamiaceae) are one of the easiest families to identify in…
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American Robin
Here’s a bird you don’t see too many of in winter up here. Note the binomial Turdus migratorius, the wandering thrush. Most of them do head south for the winter, but some will stick around, usually flocking together as they wander around for berries and the remains of fruits. Off the lawn and out of…
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January’s Flower
A cultivated Viola we found in a Green-Wood Cemetery planting recently. How can one despair when the earth continually cycles through its great changes? After winter comes the spring. In the dark, there are the stars. In the grey and the sere, there is a flower the color of the sun. Harper’s latest issue has…
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T. Rex
Had little hands, too. It’s a dark day for the Republic. Although we’ve been heading towards this kakistocracy/kleptocracy for a long time now, watching the Trumpian tipping point is no pleasant thing. But this is no time for despair. “The future,” as Joe Strummer used to say, “is unwritten.” This is the crisis, this is the…
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Raptor Week IV
Sometimes the bird gets away from you. Many times, actually. S’ok. Sometimes you see the Snow Leopard, sometimes you don’t. Over the harbor. It came towards us, but no closer in resolution. What do you think it is? * While you are pondering, consider: here’s a list of Trump-supporting companies, either carriers of that mafia family’s junk or funders of…
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Raptor Week III
This big antenna a long block away from my apartment is a regular perch for a male American Kestrel. (This is what it looks like without much optical enhancement, btw.) He’ll park on either the taller or the shorter portion (the shorter is bent back towards us), sometimes on the cross-bars. Sometimes just for a…
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Raptor Week II
Red-tailed Hawk. Buteo jamaicensis: “of Jamaica,” where the original specimen was taken. The most common road-side and soaring hawk of North America. To recap, the common name is particularly unhelpful when you get a yearling like this one. The brick-red tail feathers don’t appear until after the first year of life, if they’re the one out of…
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Raptor Week I
Cooper’s Hawk. Accipiter cooperii. William C. Cooper’s hawk. The species was named in his honor by Charles Lucien Bonaparte. Cooper was a conchologist and founder of what became the New York Academy of Sciences. Bonaparte was a Bonaparte, a nephew of the Emperor, and an ornithologist who explored the U.S. in the 1820s. You can’t…
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A Week of Raptors
How about some raptors? Let’s start with this mosaic in the 81st St. subway station, one of a large series illustrating some of the breadth of the American Museum of Natural History. (You can actually enter the museum from underground there.) It’s very much worth a MetroCard swipe to explore both platforms, which are stacked…
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Calyces
The calyx of the American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) is this beautiful cross shape. A few stay on the tree as the fruits come down, but most fall with the fruit. There’s still some fruit on the trees. Most of it, though, is on the ground, and some of that is well beyond eating stage. We…
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Backyard and Beyond 