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One Singular Sensation
I have not seen a Monarch caterpillar in New York City since 2010. Now, I haven’t been actively surveying for them, but whenever I see milkweed, I do look closer. Six years is way, way too long a period to go without. As you probably know, Monarch have taken a severe beating from habitat destruction…
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Magic Hour Bird & Feathers
Some bird identification challenges: A.) Spotted at distance about 45 minutes before sunset in Prospect Park two weeks ago.B.) A single feather found in Green-Wood.C.) Also in Green-Wood sometime later, with quite a few others of its kind. Somebody was plucking.
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Crane
Rowhouses are damned dark! With windows only on the short ends (and skylights on the top floor), the late 19th century brownstones Park Slope, Brooklyn, make for a gloomy weekend. The one we were recently house-sitting in had some amazing original details, like the door knobs, but boy were they a challenge to photograph in…
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Question Mark
There are two comma or anglewing butterflies of the Polygonia genus we see regularly here in NYC. You can tell them apart when their wings are spread, but it’s subtle.But they often perch upright. So the namesake comma mark on the hindwing is the tell-all. Of course, this is hard to see in the field!The…
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Frog Saturation
A single frog can lay 20,000 eggs.The low murk of the Dell Water was full of hundreds, if not thousands, of frogs on a recent visit.Boy, are they jumpy! They know you’re coming before you know they’re there. Until you can’t ignore all the plops taking to the water. It was a little H.P. Lovecraftian,…
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Sunset Park Elm
Our mighty elm is looking a little worn-out after a long hot summer of chlorophyll. Man, baby carriage, trash can underneath for scale. There’s just a touch of color in a few leaves yet. Here’s the whole series of portraits of this tree. The cathedral branching.
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The Once & Future World
This is a Fragile Forktail (Ischnura posits), spotted recently in Prospect Park. But it has been a lousy year for damselflies. I’m seeing neither the species nor the numbers I’ve seen in the past, particularly in Green-Wood. There, the “waters” are a mess: Valley Water has had no lilies all season; the Sylvan Water is so…
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Zabulon
Poanes zabulon,the Zabulon Skipper. A male. You really have to get up close and personal to the skippers to tell them apart. And that usually takes some optical enhancement, although if you should find yourself sitting quietly next to a lot of pollinator-magnets they may be too busy to pay you any attention.
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Doves on the Roof, Aloft If Not Aloof
On a glass roof. A not bad illustration of the anisodactyl pattern, the three toes forward/one back arrangement of some bird feet. Passerines, the song birds, also known as perching birds, have this layout. The members of order Passeriformes make up half of all bird species. Doves, however, even with the same toe-pattern, are members…
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To Explore Strange New Worlds
These are the neighborhood voyages of this blog… for the 50th anniversary of Star Trek.
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Backyard and Beyond 