Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

  • Belted Kingfisher

    A male Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon). At least two, a male and a female (who has a russet red belly band in addition to the blue, making them one of the few bird species in our parts where the female is the more colorful), have been spotted around Green-Wood’s four ponds for months now. These birds…

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  • Oak Wilt

    Damn it! I really wanted to start on a positive note, but the bad news just keeps coming. Oak wilt has been discovered in Brooklyn. This is a lethal fungal infection of oaks and other species, its spores spread by beetles. When I was in Green-Wood on Friday, I heard a chipper hard at work.…

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  • A New Year

    Built on the past. Awaiting the future. Full of promise. And danger.   Aux armes, citoyens, Formez vos bataillons, Marchons, marchons! Qu’un sang impur Abreuve nos sillons! Casablanca has been playing at Film Forum here in NYC on it’s 75th year. This is so wonderfully cheesy and inspiring at the same time: You may recall that,…

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  • One More Time

    Because awesome and delightful. When last we saw this Pied-billed Grebe on the Valley Water, ice covered more than half of the pond. The next time, ice covered it all and no grebe was to be seen. The bird presumably took off looking for open water. The water was completely free of ice yesterday, with…

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  • Preen

    Northern Shoveler (Anas clypeata) male working on feather maintenance. There’s preening, and then there’s overweening preening. Did you see the Tiny-Fisted One’s Christmas “card” tweet? Cheeto Mussolini couldn’t even be bothered to gather together his klan o’ grifters for a bogus family picture. Sad.

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  • Hmm

    There are some interesting bird figures carved around the Bethesda Terrace in Central Park. Jacob Wrey Mould, an English architect (and linguistic and musician), who worked closely with Olmsted and Vaux, is responsible for these rather exotic creatures.What would you call them? As with the Falconer, they’ve seen some serious damage, and the repair work…

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  • Raptor Wednesday

    Always note the anomalies, the bumps.Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) on railing. Showing the “belly band” nicely. Way down in the flatlands, 1st & 40th, Raven country.Another day, another sighting. Big shoulders, relatively short, squared-off tail. The mottled white patches on the back, sometimes a little more clearly in a V pattern, are another good sign…

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  • Franklinia

      A late fall visit to the only Franklinia alatamaha in Central Park.This tree is considered extinct in the wild, yet survives as an ornamental through the trade and botanical institutions. Its original range was quite limited, in the Altamaha River valley of Georgia. We’re definitely north of that, but a wait a bit… by…

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  • Super-sizing the Bird List

    How many species of birds are there in the world? It has generally been considered that there are between 9,000-10,000. This new study upends that, suggesting that the number should be double the earlier estimate. (Here’s the actual paper.) Well, wow! We have defined species as animals that can breed together. But if you pay…

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  • Deck Us All With Boston Charlie

    Sure, I used to get excited about Christmas trees, but now in my maturity I’d rather see one alive, with the sky all around it. My favorite carol. Walt Kelly (1913-1973). Portrayed Joe McCarthy as “Simple J. Malarkey” and when newspapers who syndicated him threatened to pull his strip if he showed McCarthy/Malarkey’s face again,…

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