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Dire Ox
Originally posted on Backyard and Beyond: By now, a lot of you know about the abandoned brick-arched train tunnel underneath Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. But I’m guessing far fewer of you are aware of the caves honeycombing what the geologists call the “Heartland Formation” “Ravenswood Granodiorite” under Brooklyn Heights. I had a rare opportunity to…
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Natural Object: Paleontological Find
Originally posted on Backyard and Beyond: ? Brooklyn, which is located at the mouth of what Walt Whitman called “fish-shaped Paumanok,” using a Native American word for what we now call Long Island, is, geologically speaking, loosey-goosey. We are sitting on glacial till, the rubble (sands, clays, gravels, erratics, etc.) pushed down here during the…
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Duck!
It was an absurd thing to say, I admit, but it’s all I could think of this morning at the Battery just before I fell to the ground. This was no duck, it was an enormous eagle passing right over our heads as we kissed the concrete, so close we could hear the rush of…
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Wild Thing: You Make My Heart Sing
The woodland floor, even in a microscopic sample, is a wonderland. The little bit of wonderland at Pier 1 at Brooklyn Bridge Park is currently aflutter with wildflowers, spring’s advance guard, taking advantage of the sun before the trees shade the ground. Some are already abloom, others are readying to bloom, yet others are just…
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Pandion haliaetus Redux
About that binomial: Pandion was a mythical king of Athens who had two daughters, Philomel and Procne. The latter married Tereus, king of Thrace, even though he wanted Philomel. To get Philomel, the Thracian cut out Procne’s tongue and pretended she was dead. Unable to speak her woe, Procne informed her sister of her fate by…
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Pandion haliaetus
Ospreys have begun to return to Brooklyn and on Sunday we had our first sightings of the year: a pair already well into breeding festivities. The sun’s in the way, but you can just see a fish here under this female’s right foot. As she fed, the male went off fishing for sticks. He picked some…
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Some Trees
Glove-like leaf coming off a new Tulip Tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) bud.A very sprouty old Quercus.Same, in situ.Salix catkins and baby leaves showering 6th Avenue.
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Kestrels, Kestrels, We’ve Got Kestrels!
Male Falco sparverius at Floyd Bennett Field, where the grasslands, currently mown, can often be a good place to see this most common of NYC raptors. This one is particularly painterly with those spots (and the cloudy day).Here is a female, farther away from the camera. Her wings don’t have the blue of the male…
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Blue-winged Teal
A drake Blue-winged Teal (Anas discors). Surely one of the most handsome of all ducks.The species is a long-distance migrant, some heading deep down into South America. They’re also early birds, one of the first to arrive and the first to leave. I rarely see them in NYC.Here’s the hen. The pair were dabbling in…
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