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.”

  • Windhover

    A Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus), the “dapple-dawn-drawn-falcon,” as Hopkins alliterated to the nth degree, hovering over the Northumberland beach. Hopkins’s poem The Windhover, although another of his mash notes to his Invisible Boyfriend, captures something of the impression made by these birds hovering with head to the wind and eyes to the ground, searching for…

    See more

    , ,

  • Sandstone and Basalt

    Kind of hot for blogging, wot? Let’s take a dip in the North Sea: this is Greymare Rock, also known as Saddle Rock and the Whale’s Belly, just south of Dunstanburgh Castle. It’s made up of buckled layers of sandstone, the same sandstone used to build the nearby castle. The castle itself, a ruin now,…

    See more

    ,

  • An Errant Whooper and A Quiz

    As we neared the near-end of our first day’s walk along the Northumberland Coast, we spotted two swans in the distance. One was a familiar Mute Swan (Cygnus olor), invasive in the U.S., but native in the UK (and very present on the Tweed, where we started our walk) and the other, pictured below, a…

    See more

    , ,

  • Stinkhorns

    Stinkhorns in Sunset Park. Genus Mutinus, but I’m not sure of the species, caninus, ravenelii? These are not all that unfamiliar in the urban context: mulched areas of parks are a good place to find them. These mushrooms, of the Phallaceae family, are atypical fungi: they produce a stinky slime to attract flies, who then…

    See more

    ,

  • Even More British Birds

    A very vocal male Reed Bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus) popped out of the dunes. At Long Nanny along the Northumberland shore, we ran into a fence across the beach. As we were trying to figure out the best way to proceed, a volunteer National Trust ranger emerged from the dunes, where she’d had her eye on…

    See more

    , ,

  • Sumer is icumen in

    I’ve heard a few Dog Day Cicadas (Tibicen) recently, at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge and here in Cobble Hill, but it’s still early. In anticipation, the Cicada Killer Wasps (Sphecius speciosus) have begun to emerge. Males are generally seen first; they’re out to claim nesting territory. I saw my first CKW of the summer on…

    See more

    ,

  • NYC Is Wild?

    I’ll say! Here’s typical American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) habitat in the city. That rectangular gap in the bracket is the entrance to a nest from which at least two youngsters fledged this year. North America’s smallest falcon species has really taken to such rotting cornices here in NYC: I know of three nests within a…

    See more

    ,

  • British Birds II

    Robin (Erithacus rubecula). Yup, looks nothing like ours.The Blackbird (Turdus merula), on the otherhand, is much like our American Robin (Turdus migratorius), an omnipresent thrush.Tufted Duck (Aythya fuligula).Lesser Black-backed Gulls (Larus fuscus): we’re seeing more and more of these birds on this side of the Atlantic.Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs), the source of the frog-call.Pied Wagtail (Motacilla…

    See more

    , ,

  • Everywhere You Look

    Found in the salad spinner after washing some organic lettuce. A Histeridae family beetle, also known as hisser or clown beetles, even though they don’t wear much makeup. They eat the larvae of flies.A late-blooming Prickly Pear (Opuntia), one of my favorite local flowers. A very beat-up Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele), a new species…

    See more

    , , , , ,

  • British Birds I

    On our very first day in Edinburgh, we wandered about the Royal Botanic Garden in a jet-lagged daze. An accipiter profile high overhead was one of the day’s first birds. Sparrowhawk presumably. A Kestrel made an appearance, but more on these anon. And a Buzzard (Buteo buteo) was seen twice, the second time being mobbed…

    See more

    , ,