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.”

  • Question Mark?

    The question mark on a Question Mark butterfly (Polygonia interrogationis) looks a little more like a semi-colon. These and their cousins the Eastern Commas are also called Anglewings more generically because their wings don’t have the rounded shape of most of our butterflies. This one was slurping up Viburnum nectar in Brooklyn Bridge Park recently.…

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  • Is this heaven?

    Well, I can’t speak to that question, having no expertise in the matter, but I can tell you that this picture is in fact of a part of Brooklyn, New York, borough of 2.5 million-plus people. Welcome to Backyard and Beyond, where I explore the natural history of the urban frontier. I hope you like…

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  • Forecast: Cottonwood Flurries

    Eastern Cottonwoods (Populus deltoides) pods are peeling back and letting rip, launching kerjillions of seeds on the wind.This is why they call them “cottonwood.”And piled up like snow. Photos above from Brooklyn Bridge Park. Photo below from Broad Channel:Stand down-wind of one.

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  • The day in birds

    My day in birds began just after 5 a.m. when I woke to the pre-dawn chorus of the local House Sparrows. Argh! I grumbled something and rolled over. Between rain clouds, I went out to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in the middle of the day. Some thirty-seven species of birds and three mosquito bites. Many…

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  • Premature Juneberries

    Some of the local Amelanchier (a.k.a. Shadblow, Serviceberry, etc.) berries are purple-ripe. Others are coming along fast:Gowanus street top, Brooklyn Bridge Park bottom.

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  • The winter beach, the small house

    Two of my favorite things. The blurb on Charlton Ogburn, Jr.’s The Winter Beach (1966) says it’s “timeless,” but no, it’s very much a piece of its era. Ogburn traveled down the east coast in the early 1960s and he was mostly bummed out at what he found of the post-war boom. The environmental movement,…

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  • Horseshoe Moon

    Can you feel it? The Horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus) sure can. It’s spawning season. Here, looking like rocks, are some males awaiting females and clusters of males attached to, and surrounding, females. Could it be their multiple optical systems, including compound eyes and UV sensors? Could it be their one hundred thousand cuticular receptors, allowing…

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  • C. serpentina

    Over the weekend, I saw three big Snapping Turtles (Chelydra serpentina) in Green-Wood Cemetery. This is the time of year they emerge from the murk of ponds and lakes to reproduce, the female often travelling long distances to find soft earth, dirt, or fine gravel in which to bury her clutch of eggs. Unlike in…

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  • Salamanders in Da Bronx

    As part of New York City Wildflower Week, I went up to Van Cortlandt Park in the nether reaches of the Bronx to join Ellen Pehek in turning over some old wood. Ellen is the NYC Parks & Rec Principal Research Ecologist and involved in a study monitoring Eastern Red-backed salamanders (Plethodon cinereus). How do…

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  • Below the bridge

    This view is like a dream sometimes. Also spotted in Brooklyn Bridge Park:

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