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Stormy thoughts
“Climate change is almost always abrupt, shifting rapidly within decades, even years,” writes Brian Fagin in his book about the Little Ice Age. That period, which interrupted the interglacial warming phase that has seen the rise of human beings to overwhelm the planet, lasted roughly from 1300-1850, and saw massive demographic crises throughout the world;…
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Gall-ish
Plenty of oaks yet to turn color in the Hudson Highlands, 60 miles north of Brooklyn. And where there are oaks, there are galls. Here’s one I came across up there recently:Not sure what species is inside here. To re-cap, galls are formed by the interaction of animal and plant. Irritated by wasp, mite, aphid,…
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Cawngress of Crows
American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos), an intensely social species.
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Barnacle Goose, Prospect Lake
A Barnacle Goose (Branta leucopsis) hanging out with some Canada Greese (Branta canadensis) on the Lake in Prospect Park. A most uncommon sight in the northeast, since this bird is native to Greenland and Northern Europe. First one I’ve ever seen. Probably the first one ever seen in Prospect. If you go looking for it,…
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Dead Horse Bay
Yellow-rumped warblers and Green Darner dragonflies before we got to the landfill edge.One of two Royal Terns, Thalasseus maximus, both with bands on their left legs. Not a commonly sighted bird in the city; I didn’t know what they were at first. The smaller Common and Little Terns we see here during summer have already…
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BBP Eye Candy
Take away a little green pigmentation and what do you get? You can open these up to fill your Monday morning computer screen by clicking on them, because you probably need a little boost to the start of your week. The last image would make a particularly good mini trifold screen, and since you’re using…
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Mammal
Awwwww…. Some three feet off the ground, in the thick of the plants. We think it’s a young brown rat, Rattus norvegicus, whiskers atwitter.
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Furman Cattails
The Furman Street rooftop cattail mini-garden is still going strong. Diagonal roof line necessitated by your blogger not wanting to venture too far out into Furman Street’s under-the-BQE dragstrip raceway.
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Pine Siskins
Pine siskins, Spinus pinus, have been passing through town this past couple of weeks. These were in Brooklyn Bridge Park yesterday. This was forecast to be a big year for these typically boreal birds, pushed down to our latitudes by weather and other conditions in Canada, and it has been. A small, streaky bird with…
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Interior Katydid
As if to reinforce the point to this blog — that inexhaustible nature is everywhere — what should I find on the inside of my building’s front door this morning? A katydid, with only five legs. I haven’t heard any katydids on the street in a while, but I have run across them before in…
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Backyard and Beyond 