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In the Hudson Highlands
On the flank of Mt. Taurus above Cold Spring, NY, yesterday. (Click on this image to view a larger version.)
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Leaf Color Chat
What are the leaves saying?These colors maybe signaling something. Several somethings, in fact. I’ll be talking about our friends the leaves tomorrow night at OutdoorFest’s Mappy Hour, 7-9, at the brand new Threes Brewing Co. in Gowanus. So new that it hasn’t opened it; this is a preview event. See here for more details.Leaves, beer,…
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Cobras!
Wellllll… not exactly. Honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos) pods posed to show off their curls.So I brought these pods home, and two weeks later, they gave birth! Actually, some… thing emerged, cutting out circular escape passages after devouring the no-doubt tasty seeds within.Here’s a list, which we must presume is only partial, of insects that enjoy…
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Dead Skeeter
Some of you, I know, enjoy my necropsy photographs from the human/mosquito war. Here’s a recent one. She either squeezed through the screens or made it past three doors.
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Pyrrharctia isabella
What is Autumn without a Wooly Bear crossing your path?
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Flying
Insect-summer is over. But last week I was in Prospect Park and saw masses of dragonflies over the Butterfly Meadow, in a patch of the Nethermead, and then in two clusters along the Long Meadow. They all seemed to be Common Green Darners, the large migrating species. And they were hunting on the wing. Gnats,…
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Drey
A large clump of leaves in the branches of a tree is often mistaken for a bird nest. It’s actually a drey, or squirrel nest. More specifically, it’s a summer nest. Winter will find them squirreled away in warmer, sturdier spots, like your attic. This Common Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula), helping to perpetuate the impression that…
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Seen on recent saunters
Beech nuts and the pods they come in on. At another beech tree, this time a stump, some funky fungus.I like the way one of these “organ pipe” mud-dauber-wasp nests follows the arch here. It will be some months before we see the trees this leafy again.
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Mantid
Chinese Mantid, Tenodera aridifolia, on Elvira’s window. Easily four inches long. This is a late summer classic, at least since 1896, when these Asian natives were first introduced into North America. There have been many introductions since, as these all-purpose predators will eat anything they can get their “preying” hands on; of course, that also…
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Backyard and Beyond 