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Raptor Wednesday
This was my winter of the Rough-legged Hawks (Buteo lagopus). I’d never seen these tundra-evolved raptors before, but the good, cold, blistering winds from the north brought them down to the coast of Long Island, possibly in larger numbers than usual, where they searched for grasslands similar to their northern habitat. Floyd Bennett Field. In…
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Ravens Making Ravens?
Remember when I saw a pair of Common Ravens flying and courting over a quiet (on the weekends) piece of the Sunset Park waterfront? It was a fantastic experience. I’ve been out to Bush Terminal Park several times since New Year’s Day, but didn’t have any luck in seeing the birds again until this weekend.…
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A Forest in Times Square…
Originally posted on Backyard and Beyond: .. but the beavers might take a little longer. My friend, the botanist and all around urban nature superhero Marielle Anzelone, is fundraising for a PopUp Forest in Times Square. Sounds crazy, right? A bit of forest in the resolutely artificial, corporate-gagged, light-pollution-bathed, Elmo-stalked, tourist-duped nightmare they’ve made of…
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Word-Hoards
Kame, karst, kettle, key, kill, kipuka, kiss tank, knob, knoll, krummholz, kudzu. These are all the entries under the letter K in Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, put together by a team of 45 writers and with an introduction by Barry Lopez. What a treasure trove! Sometimes, I’m down on the ol’ species…
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Foxy Thoughts
Originally posted on Backyard and Beyond: In our hyper-specialized society, “amateur” is far from a noble description. It is, in fact, usually the opposite, a term of disparagement, insult, attack. Meanwhile, in the sports-entertainment industry, it has lost all meaning, corrupted by the NCAA’s exploitative hypocrisy and the corporate/nationalist perversion of the Olympics. But the…
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Lil’ Snapper
Originally posted on Backyard and Beyond: A baby Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina) has the unfortunate characteristic of blending in quite well with a road. South Cross Road, in Bradford, Mass., to be exact. While in the area last week, I saw several Painted turtles and a few others I could not identify who didn’t make…
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Geese
A goosey alignment: Brant and Canada. Branta bernicla and Branta canadensis. The Branta genus also includes the Barnacle Goose and Cackling Goose, which have been known to hybridize.
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Remains of the night
Originally posted on Backyard and Beyond: Out Madaket way, a row of arbor vitae had been cut back recently because they were crowding the road. Underneath were dozens of bodies. Was it the work of a serial killer? No, some owls had been feeding. Pellets are what these regurgitated masses of prey vomited up by…
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Raptor Wednesday
Away-way out on the ice, a young Bald Eagle hangs out in New York Harbor. With so much ice on the Hudson last week, the birds were in search of open water and their favored prey, fish. This picture was taken from the pier at Bush Terminal Park; that’s New Jersey in the distance. The…
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