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.”

  • Gowanus Dragon

    The anti-freeze color of the water is just about right here.

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  • New Nest

    Rock Pigeon (Columba livia) nesting under the bridge. The bird was still working on the nest, using her body to shape these freshly collected twigs. The red-eyes are natural, not from a flash.

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  • A Preview

    In October, there’s going to be an exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum called Birds of a Feather: Avian Imagery in Contemporary Art. I was digging around the scheduled artists and found this (which may not be on exhibit, btw): Rachel Berwick, which is a good name for a bird artist, has trained parrots…

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  • Reflection

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  • Revisions

    A feathered turtle. This is going to keep the taxonomists up late.

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  • Strand Birds

    The bird section at Strand Books is quite worth reviewing. There are actually two nearby sections, the other for over-sized volumes, jammed with photo books and some very fine references; there’s a third section if you count field guides. The prices are, well, Bass-y — père et fille Bass are pirates from way back. I…

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  • Dive!

    Red-breasted Merganser (Mergus serrator) taking to the water.

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  • Green-Wood is Red-Head Country

    The Red-headed Woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) who came to stay? An unusual species for Brooklyn, this bird over-wintered in Green-Wood, and quite locally, too: this is the same tree — snags are perfect habitat for them — I photographed it in back in January. You can see how the red feathers of the head have really…

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  • A Terrible Beauty

    Something oily on the Gowanus this way comes.

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  • Water Street Peregrines

    For the last couple of months, I’ve periodically seen a single Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) hanging around the scrape at 55 Water Street. This is an established nesting site, complete with nest cams (but the website hasn’t been updated since 2011). Most of the time I’ve looking (optically enhanced, you can bet) from the other…

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