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.”

  • Sunset

    Clouds make or break a sunset. This was yesterday, actually, but my fingers have only just now defrosted from being out there on the frostbitten edge of Pier 5. The movement of gulls around the harbor at sundown is hypnotic. Roost-ward go I, too.

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  • At the House of D

    Peregrine (Falco peregrinus) at entrance to the scrape. There are many finely-tuned words in falconry: “scrape” is purely descriptive; the birds may scrape a shallow depression for their nest. That’s about all the nest is. These hybrid urban falcons, though… it seems unlikely there was any soft earth or gravel in this utilitarian space, just…

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  • Anniversary

    Four years ago, I started Backyard and Beyond. Here’s my very first post, with picture of a recently hatched Painted Turtle, no bigger than a silver dollar. For my anniversary, a bouquet: Feathers of one of Green-Wood’s Monk Parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus). The blue primaries (long wing feathers) are somewhat surprising for a bird otherwise tropical-green.…

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  • Rusty BB

    The Rusty Blackbird (Euphagus carolinus) is a species in deep trouble. According to the International Rusty Blackbird Working Group, the species has shown “chronic long-term and acute short-term population declines,” more so than any other species we see. The numbers are startling, with a population plummet from 85-95% over the last century. The reason for…

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  • Coastal Brooklyn, Part II

    So much depends on light and distance. The Red-necked Grebe (Podiceps grisegena) above was sun-ward and far.This Horned Grebe (Podiceps auritus) was sun-struck and near. Both of these species have very different breeding plumages, which they are named after (that’s not so helpful to those of us so far south of their breeding grounds). I…

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  • The light in your eyes

    I wonder who it was who painted the first portrait with that little bit of white in the eyes signifying reflection? You can wander a museum for hours fixated on these daubs of paint, geometries suggestive of where the subject posed — rectangular for natural light through a window, for instance — which suddenly give…

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  • Coastal Brooklyn, Part I

    My closest-ever encounter with a Red-throated Loon (Gavia stellata). In the calm waters of Erie Basin in Red Hook. The bird’s upturned bill and smaller size helps to distinguish this species from the Common Loon (G. immer), which in roiling winter waters at silhouette distance is still a challenge. The “red-throat” is part of breeding…

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  • Bagged

    On a young Baldcypress in a still-industrial stretch of Plymouth Street: several of these bag worm cocoons. These are the egg cases of a Psychidae family moth. From a distance they look like cones or some other part of the tree itself. Small twigs are glued onto the surprisingly, or, actually, not so surprisingly, tough…

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  • What a day!

    Croton Point Park: as the train pulled in, not a single Bald Eagle was visible in the trees fronting the bay. Uh-oh. I’d promised eagles to the folks I’d dragged up to celebrate my birthday. The absence of ice seemed to be telling; the birds were heading back upriver. When I was there at the…

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  • Wink

    This male Gadwell (Anas strepera) flashes his nictating membrane, or third eyelid. Many birds have these to clean and protect the eyes. They are semi-transparent, evidently, and some diving birds (this one’s a dabbler) have slitted ones for underwater work.

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