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Flickermania
Spring and fall, migration usually brings us a few days with large numbers of Northern Flickers (Colaptes auratus) passing through. This is the only woodpecker around here you will regularly see foraging on the ground. You can scare up a dozen here, a dozen there, and see them flying hither and yon through Brooklyn’s green…
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Snipers
It’s that time of year when you can not be sure what will drop out of the sky. I mean this quite literally, because it’s migration season and birds of many feathers are streaming northward, in our case along the Atlantic flyway. Yesterday, for instance, we spotted a Wilson’s Snipe in Green-Wood Cemetery on a…
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Bathing Hawk
Bathing is vital for feather maintenance.But being in the water out in the open can make you fairly vulnerable if you’re not a buoyant, oily-feathered waterfowl. This small Accipiter found a weeping something or other arching over the water use as a shower curtain.The bird stood in the water for quite a while and…
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And another leaf…
…is unfurled.Meanwhile, a crab apple (Malus) begins to bloom.Less delicately, the thumb-sized bud of a Horse-chestut (Aesculus hippocastanum) still contains its upright chandelier of flowers and leaves.A young seed-ball of the London Plain (Platanus × acerifolia) blown off in Sunday’s high wind and mushed up on contact with the sidewalk. This was a little under…
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Boat-tailed Grackle
The Common Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula) is no stranger in our midst, but you really need to be along the coast to spot a Boat-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus major). Marine Park had a few of them foraging in the reed stubble recently. Here’s one of these spectacular “blackbirds.” They are bigger than the Commons, with longer tails…
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Sunset Park Elm
The chartreuse edition.And on the micro level, a single seed from the rich crop the tree is now laden with. Remember, elms are wind-pollinated, so the early flowering resulting in early fruiting. On average, it takes 70,900 of these little winged seeds to make up a pound, according to this USFS site. But wait, a…
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Redbudding
The Redbuds (Cercis canadensis) are coming, the Redbuds are coming! Another day, another tree.
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Monkish Meditation?
In fact, this Monk Parakeet (Myiopsitta monachus) is busy as any other bird foraging in the grass.
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Coney Island’s Endemic Species
Originally posted on Backyard and Beyond: You have to be a certain age to remember when Coney Island Whitefish teemed off of Brooklyn’s shores in such massive schools that beach-goers wouldn’t dare go into the water. Today, however, they’re a rare sight. Although sometimes mistaken for the pallid Manhattan eel, Mentula brevus, the Coney Island…
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