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Woodpecker Sign
This pine is dead, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t provide a home for fungi, many an invertebrate, and an active red-tailed hawk nest. These holes attest to the various boring insects that have been pecked out by woodpeckers up and down the trunk. Wing of a woodpecker that met an untimely end. Looks too…
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On Strike
Backyard and Beyond has joined the General Strike. May Day 2012.
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Spot: A Contemporary Retelling
See Spot running around the Ravine without a leash. All dogs are supposed to be on a leash in the Ravine. Where is Spot’s leash? Can anybody find Spot’s leash? The three people in charge of Spot didn’t seem to have a leash among them. Oh, well. Spot has found a way through the fence.…
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In Brooklyn Bridge Park
Honey-colored honey bee in beach rose.Sticky green fruits of Eastern cottonwood. These will eventually split open to release the cottony fluffs that carry the seeds far and wide.A bridge passes over it.
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Cardinal Nest
Female Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) on her eggs. Cardinals are year-around residents of the city, and one of our very vocal species, so we will definitely be hearing them on this morning’s Listening Tour. This female, however, will not be making much noise because she’s trying to be inconspicuous. Good luck! The nest is much…
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The Listening Tour
Tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. at Grand Army Plaza, Prospect Park, I will be leading a Listening Tour for Proteus Gowanus, the interdisciplinary gallery and reading room. Join us. This is part of Proteus’s year-long series of events, exhibits, and performances centered around the theme of Migration. The birds do it, some of the butterflies…
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Lady Bug
My first lady bug of the year. The Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis) is also multi-spotted, or sometimes not spotted at all. It’s highly variable, with more than 100 (!) colorforms. The M-shape on the pronotum is usually a good marker of the species. Of course, that’s a W-shape if you look at it…
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Guying Detail for Arbor Day
The site engineering firm’s detailed drawing really does call out for Joyce Kilmer’s famous poem, as hackneyed as it is. It’s Arbor Day, people, so remember the trees. Thinking thusly, yesterday I pointed out the fence surrounding the tree pit a dog was crouching in to the man holding the dog’s leash. I see tree…
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Devil’s Walkingstick
What a great name, and perfectly understandable when you get a look at the young shoots and stems. Aralia spinosa is a native understory shrub, sometimes a small tree, of the East Coast, particularly the South. You can find it in all the boroughs; this patch was along the north end of the loop around…
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View from the Back 40
March 26th.April 3rd.April 9th.April 16th.April 25th. Overnight, and I mean that literally, since I took a photo yesterday afternoon, the lower levels of this ivy were mauled. Perhaps the hellions next door? The construction waste, knotweed, and even mulberry that filled the neighbor’s backyard was recently cleared out. Now screamers populate it. Not a net…
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Backyard and Beyond 