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VLB Adult
In less than a decade, the invasive Viburnum Leaf Beetle (Pyrrhalta viburni) has spread throughout most of New York State. They devour the leaves of viburnum species, key understory plants of our woodlands; a couple years infestation can kill the plant. I’ve seen the damage they do in Prospect Park, skeletonizing every leaf on a…
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Always Check That Bird
Because the assumption “pigeon” may usually be correct, but it isn’t always. Something about that silhouette…Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus).At the top of 1st Avenue. You may remember that on January 1st, I found a pair of Ravens (Corvus corax) courting near here. Lately, four Ravens have been seen in the area, so presumably the nest-building…
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A Great Wall
Sunset Park is buttressed by a rough stone retaining wall that has become the home of numerous lifeforms. Above is the southwest-facing flank. Here’s the northeast wall, along 41st St. That’s where all the following were found:The presence of lichen, which doesn’t tolerate pollution, means the air here is relatively good. Indeed, elevated near the…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Backyard and Beyond 