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.”

  • Three Mammals on an Early Spring Day

    Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis).Eastern Chipmunk (Tamias striatus).Raccoon (Procyon lotor).Tail-grooming (de-fleaing?).

    See more

    ,

  • And then suddenly

    From the embrowned earth, the colors of early spring.Crocuses.And Snowdrops.And Winter Aconite.

    See more

    ,

  • Red-Shouldered Hawk

    A Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus) perches near the Nature Center at Marine Park. A brief sighting; the bird zoomed off quick as a… hawk. Usually birds of the forest, they’re a rare sight in the city; I last saw one in Brooklyn in March 2011, at Calvert Vaux Park. I hear that this one has…

    See more

    , , ,

  • Unreal Nature

    On a recent trip to Croton Point, a friend noted how much he has been conditioned by television nature shows to expect spectacular close-ups, stunning cinematography and photography, and dramatic incidents in the wild. The real world is something quite different. Missing in those shows are the hours of footage, sometimes the days and even…

    See more

    ,

  • Scaup

    There are thousands of Scaup in Gravesend and Dead Horse Bay right now. Here’s a raft of them from the archives of 2012. They will soon head north to breed. Over the weekend there was precisely one at Marine Park Creek. A female Greater Scaup (Aythya marila). And she was on the rocks… making it…

    See more

  • Area Closed

    The signs are back up at the grasslands at Floyd Bennett Field. This doesn’t stop everybody, but they are better than nothing. Stay off the grasslands. Leave them to the Kestrels (Falco sparverius). This is a male, with blue on the wing.The signs are a handy perch. These birds hunt by hovering over the ground,…

    See more

    , , ,

  • Springish

    A Red-tailed Hawk was plucking a white fancy pigeon or maybe it was a peacenik dove; the feathers were drifting towards Grand Army Plaza like errant snowflakes. A small crowd gathered to watch, some aghast. There was a Hairy Woodpecker resounding away in the Lullwater, ratta-tapping a dead limb for all to hear. Those bellwethers…

    See more

  • Late Afternoon Composition

    Overcast day, industrial ruins, harbor, Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus).

    See more

  • What Is To Be Done?

    Here at the Thoreau Meeting, Sunday’s as good as any other day for a sermon. We have no one to blame but ourselves when it comes to the corruption of our public institutions, as well as our private ones and everything in between. Our consent and complicity have been given entirely too freely. I’ve been…

    See more

  • The Eye

    “Knaves and Tyrants, Beware! Thisis Upon You!” (This slogan, bifurcated by a human eye instead of a Ring-billed Gull’s, was the motto of The Subterranean, 1843-1845. The rowdy — it was closed down for libel — NYC newspaper was founded by Mike Walsh, whose burly populism was deeply dyed with the virulent racism of the…

    See more