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Skene Amidst the Daffodils
This is Alexander Johnston Chalmers Skene looking out over the early daffodils in Grand Army Plaza. I assumed that Skene might possibly be the only gynecologist ever memorialized with a statue, but I would be wrong, as you’ll see in that informative Parks Department link: Central Park has J. Marion Simms, the, ahem, “father of…
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Staten Island’s Frog
We interrupt this blog to remind you that while I sometimes range far and wide (Iceland, New Mexico, Nantucket, etc.) my heart remains right here in the great outdoors of the urban conglomeration that is New York City. Nature, as I like to say almost daily, is all around us, even in the city. Case…
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Teeth and Nails
The winter beach is often the last resting place of fish, fowl, and mammal. On my last walk along the north shore of Nantucket, I found a dead Harbor seal (Phoca vitulina). Such close-up encounters, albeit a bit queasy, can offer rare details. For instance, note the the animal’s human-scale teeth: Also, and this was…
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Another cache
Yesterday, we saw a bird’s nest that had been reused as a cache for seeds. Here’s another little hideaway, which was also probably stocked in the fall by one of the several species of mice that inhabit our noctural woodlands. Look inside.
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Wind-blown
These Eastern Redcedars bear the brunt of the wind. But it’s not just some of the highest wind velocities on the east coast, it’s all that deadly salt, too.
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Woven Nests
Probably the most common bird nest come across is the American Robin’s, which is big for a song bird’s, and characteristically made with a mud base and a lining of grasses. Of course, birds don’t want you, or any other predator, to find their nests, so the leafless season is best for discovering them. Of…
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Prospect Park
Came across this recently. The thing that struck me on the list was the 300-year old Black Oak on Elephant Hill. That must have been a hell of a tree. I assume it’s the black oak noted as kaput in 1990 by Carsten Glaeser when he updated M.M. Graff’s Notable Tree list of 1972. I’d…
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A Cooper’s Strikes
Most of the time, hawks miss. In my years of birding, I’ve never seen an accipiter or falcon successfully take bird prey in the air. Until today. And from the passenger seat of a moving car, no less. Earlier, while walking, I saw a Cooper’s hawk zooming around in the strong winds we’re having here…
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A Neighborhood Giant
One of my favorite local trees is on Warren Street. It is growing out of a yard instead of the sidewalk. Usually, when they do host trees, these little front yards of brownstone row houses have smaller ornamental fruit trees or understory specialists like dogwood that can thrive under the taller sidewalk trees. This one,…
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Backyard and Beyond 