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.”

  • Magicicada Now

    Saturday, in Doodletown, we found a few Magicicadas.And heard, in the distance, always the distance, the science-fiction-like thrum of them in the trees.On Sunday, we returned to Clove Lakes Park in Staten Island.Up on the hill and along Royal Oak Road, we found thousands and thousands and thousands of the husks.This is the bus shelter…

    See more

    , , ,

  • Hummingbird Nest

    Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) nest throughout eastern North America, but in both the first (1988) and second (2008) Atlas of Breeding Birds in New York State, none were found to be breeding in NYC. (As the City Birder, who found this nest, notes: it’s certainly possible that previous nesting was just missed because of the…

    See more

    , ,

  • Swallow Nesting

    That mud-daubed Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica) nest is occupied.

    See more

    , , ,

  • Black-throated Blues

    Before I began watching birds, I could identify a bare few of them: cardinals, robins, mourning doves, “sparrows,” things seen on bird feeders or everywhere. One day in the late 1990s when I lived on the top floor of a Park Slope rowhouse, I noticed a small dark bird moving quickly through the tree out…

    See more

    ,

  • Dragonfly Pond Watch

    This morning I joined Brooklyn Bridge Park staffers and volunteers for an orientation about the Dragonfly Pond Watch they are participating in this season. As part of the Migratory Dragonfly Partnership, the Watch is gathering data about five of the sixteen known migratory dragonfly species in North America: Common Green Darner (Anax junius) Black Saddlebags…

    See more

    , , , , ,

  • Life Along The Delaware Bay

    I didn’t make it to the beach to witness the annual rites of spring of the Horseshoe Crabs (Limulus polyphemus). But I did manage a virtual trip with this beautiful book. Life Along The Delaware: Cape May, Gateway to a Million Shorebirds by Niles, Burger, and Dey, with photography by van de Kam, was published…

    See more

    ,
    , ,

  • Central Park Entire

    I was given a copy of Ken Chaya and Edward S. Barnard’s Central Park Entire: The Definitive Illustrated Folding May for my birthday, and part of the gift included a card for a tour with Chaya. I finally cashed in this past weekend. But first, the map. Sheer madness! But of a glorious kind. There…

    See more

    ,

  • Roses, roses, everywhere

    See more

  • Nymph, in thy orisons

    On the left, the Nnmphal husk of the Dog Day or Annual Cicada (Tibicen sp.), and on the right, the Periodic, 17-Year Cicada (Magicicada sp.). The Dog Day husk is from last August, if not the one before that, but its toes are still quite sharp. They don’t cut the skin, but they sure do…

    See more

    , , ,

  • Magicicadas

    Seventeen years later, the genus Magicicada cicadas have emerged for the brief but glorious finale to their lives. Staten Island is the local epicenter for Brood II. Yesterday, Chris the Flatbush Gardener and I went in search of them, following an article in the Times that sent us to Clove Lakes Park. We scouted the…

    See more

    , , ,