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.”

  • Everywhere

    Nature is everywhere, and representations of nature are likewise. This is one of Deborah Brown’s mosaics at Houston Street, part of a work called “Platform Diving,” which envisions the station underwater — not so hard to do anymore — with turtles, dolphins, and this octopus swimming through the old rattle and roll.This I found in…

    See more

  • We are here only a moment

    Green-Wood Cemetery, like the city at large, lost a mess of trees during Sandy. One of them was this giant, which was also the home of a Red-tailed hawk nest for several years. Judging from Facebook, these pins were probably put in by the Cemetery’s tree specialist, Adam Rychlicki, who has been doing this sort…

    See more

  • Beechwood

    Looks like something you’d find along the banks of the Withywindle, doesn’t it?

    See more

  • Flushed Apps

    What a fascinating life cycle! After their soft and spongy innards are consumed by female Homo sapiens, these indestructible exoskeleton-sheaths journey through the social network of the sewer system. (Males H. not so sapiens do sometimes use them, although judging from HRH Charles, Prince of Wales, only in a metaphoric sense.) Ubiquitous on our beaches,…

    See more

  • Bark Question

    Interesting bark in Prospect Park. I don’t know what kind of tree this is. Any ideas?

    See more

  • Urban Myth Busting

    “Have you ever seen a baby pigeon?” Well, yes, and now so have you. After all, they do not spontaneously rise out of nothing fully feathered as adult birds. I have seen the young ‘uns both in the nest and recently fledged, and, as in this unfortunate case, dead. Yup, the Rock Pigeons (Columba livia)…

    See more

  • Breakout!

    Peekaboo. The magnolias are busting out of their winter furs right now in Brooklyn Bridge Park.

    See more

  • Spring spider

    Last week, on the first day of spring, a spider found itself in the tub.An American House Spider (I think), Parasteatoda tepidariorum. I got close with the camera and somehow brushed a line of silk, so that when I moved away, I inadvertently pulled the spider with me: it danced like a tiny puppet at…

    See more

  • Sun Print/Blue Print

    Yesterday’s lacy skeletonized leaf was so popular it sent me back into my chaos files to find this sun print or cyanotype I made of a leaf skeleton years ago. This particular leaf was 8″ long from tip to petiole end, so you should click on this image to make it fill your screen at…

    See more