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.”

  • Eastern Forktail

    A male Eastern Forktail (Ischnura verticalis) showing off the characteristic and unique solid green shoulder markings and blue on segments 8 and 9. An inch long; you really have to get close to see the jewel-llike details. And, oh, look, an exuvia I didn’t even notice in the background when I took this picture.

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  • Robin Spotty Breast

    Late brood young American Robin. The binomial Turdus migratorius may raise an eyebrow, but Turdus is just the Latin for “thrush.”

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  • Not So Fragile Forktail

    This female Fragile Forktail (Ischnura posita) has captured a just-emerged damselfly of unknown species. She is eating it, as these serious inch-long predators will do. The teneral damselfly, meaning one that has just emerged from the exuvia, is ghostly pale; its exoskeleton has not yet hardened and it’s coloring/patterning has not developed. This is when…

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  • Fragile Forktails

    A mature female Ischnura posita. An immature female. Inch-long damsels, these. Eat more mosquitos, ladies! A mature male. The exclamation mark on the shoulder is tell-tale for this species, but it can fade with age.

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  • Kingbird

    An Eastern Kingbird in Green-Wood. Flying insect eaters, Kingbirds will bank and swerve like crazy while attempting to get at bugs making evasive maneuvers. Here’s a big bee who didn’t escape.

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  • Oyster Toadfish

    Last night as I watched the sun tuck behind the embankment of New Jersey, a fisherman beside me on the end of Pier 5 reeled this fish out of the dark water. He thought it was a Sea Robin, but I didn’t. It wasn’t that weird. Some research reveals it to be an Oyster Toadfish…

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  • Downy Heron

    One of a trio of young Green Herons (Butorides virescens) on a snag in the Lullwater this week. This one was sitting: I’ve never seen a heron sit before. It was a month ago that I saw this fledgling Green Heron in Green-wood. That bird looked a little older. I wonder if this trio is…

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  • Barnacles

    I just pulled these acorn barnacle shells out of a side pocket of my backpack. I picked them up in Maine a couple of months ago and promptly forgot about them. Crustaceans, acorn barnacles begin life as free-floating larvae. The tiny head and telson affair is called a nauplius. These grow into a second larval…

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  • Watching (and Weeping?)

    Lost Ladybug Project. Monarch Watch. Dragonfly Pond Watch. Bumblebee Watch. Firefly Watch. Noticing a pattern? These citizen-science projects are concerned with dwindling numbers of particular insects, micro-studies in population decline and disappearance. Start putting them together and you realize that the recent study in Science which found a 45% drop in invertebrate populations over the…

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  • Hanging the Night

    This Twelve-spotted Skimmer (Libellula pulchella) was parked just off the path around 730pm, so I think it was roosting for the night. The black markings looked velvety in the light.This is a mature male. If you counted the white spots, too, he would be a twenty-spotted skimmer. To matters more confusing, this species used to…

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