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.”

  • Sumac Robin

    10* yesterday. This is one of four American Robins who were scouring the Sumac berries. Not all Robins head south for the winter. These could also be birds from further north, this their south. Wintering Robins tend to flock and change their dietary habits, since there are few earthworms to be had now.

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  • Hoodies

    Drake Hooded Merganser, (Lophodytes cucullatus).The hen. Both sexes can extend their feathers into a top-heavy-looking “hooded” crest.Although this day, only the two males were doing so. Keeping up appearances.

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  • Polar Vortex

    The secret, besides bundling up, is walking away from the wind, although I suppose we all have to go home at some point. 5F/-16C according to the Watchtower LED above Brooklyn Bridge Park, a reading which takes no account of the ice-spikes hammered into the sinuses by the wind chill. But I remember much, much…

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  • Swanning

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  • A Parliament of Owls

    York Street mural by Craig Anthony Miller (“CAM”), who wisely uses a gas mask when working with his medium.

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  • Hawking Around

    Just before the storm, a friend who lives in Manhattan’s Chinatown sent me this phone picture of a raptor she saw on a playground on the edge of the Al Smith Houses. She wanted to know what it was. When I first started to bird-watch, I found the raptors a challenge. Still do. Some are…

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  • Kestrel

    American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) doing its hovering-hunting over grasslands. They face the wind, flare their tails, and stiffly beat their wings to hang still as they scan the ground below for movement or signs of prey. Remarkable to see. Especially when a NYPD helicopter is doing something similar nearby. Long-shot… like this raptor’s every drop…

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  • Special Mega Non-Storm Edition

    The capital of media bullshit makes it through another insignificant winter storm. I send my best wishes to people in the Midwest and New England who actually had some serious weather; pay no mind our hysteria and ratings/click-whoring news-tainment companies, who must feed on your eyes like a parasite to survive. Rather more impressive was…

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  • King Eider

    Snowy Owls aren’t our only Arctic visitors. This is a male, or drake, King Eider (Somateria spectabilis). I saw my first ever earlier this month, when, after the Brooklyn CBC, we all hurried over to Beach 59th St. on the Rockaways. The other day another was spotted off Fort Tilden. This time I had my…

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  • The Earth Abides

    At the end of Emile Zola’s 1890 novel, La Bête Humaine, a train full of soldiers hurls along the rails into Paris. There’s no one is control of the thing, for, after much madness and jealousy, the engineer and the fireman have killed each other. The doomed train is Zola’s vision of technology going berserk.…

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