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.”

  • Late Afternoon Composition

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

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  • 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…

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  • 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…

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  • 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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