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Tern, Tern, Tern
A Common Tern (Sterna hirundo) at sunset on Pier 5. The last of the days light is shining right through the nares or nostrils of this bird’s bill. Common Terns now nest on the old piers on Governor’s Island: 100 chicks were banded there last year. Tomorrow, the It’s Your Tern Festival will be celebrating…
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Animal Sex
It turns out that one of the best ways to tell species apart is to examine their genitals. There’s an incredible variety of forms of male and female sex organs, even within the species gathered together in a genus, and so for years biologists have been separating, for example, beetles that otherwise look rather similar,…
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Bird Sex
Bird sex is usually a very brief affair, a quick connection between cloaca. They may make this contact many times over the course of a day, or three, but the actual hookup itself is a matter of seconds. Sperm is transferred without benefit of a penis (except in the case of ducks and a few…
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Some Pollinators
It’s National Pollinator Week, but we should be thanking the bees — and other pollinators — every day for the work that they do. And fighting like the dickens the exterminationists of the agribusiness/pesticide complex.
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Red-tailed Hawks
Spot the three young Red-tailed hawks in this nest.
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And the foxgloves
Seeing towers of Foxgloves (Digitalis) over the weekend — many of the flowers had been knocked down by Saturday’s strong rains — reminded me of my trip to Dartmoor a year ago. The hedge-shrouded paths there were frequently foxgloved, and abuzz with bees. Check out the wild pattern within, and remember that bees see more…
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More Galls
The world of galls is vast: I don’t know what these are, but they evidently darken into these rather glossy, bean-like structures:Another. It’s just a splotchy discoloration on the top of the leaf, but underneath there’s some interest.
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Backyard and Beyond 