-
Fieldnotes: Muskrats
If you build it, they will come. Is this your typical muskrat habitat? On Sunday, looking for more caterpillars and exuviae in Brooklyn Bridge Park, we ran into a couple of muskrats, Ondatra zibethicus, munching away on the new plantings. Yes, we were surprised. One of the animals was a youngster, and some comments found…
-
Buckeye
A Common buckeye, Junonia coenia, working the aster in Prospect Park.
-
Hymenoptera
We went into Prospect Park on Saturday with a group from the Bee Watchers study. John Ascher of the American Museum of Natural History, whose fingers are visible below, led the expedition — which actually didn’t go very far since there were plenty of plants in bloom near the Boat House, where we began. There…
-
Pin Oak Stripped
This fine old pin oak on Washington Ave. in Clinton Hill was shock-shorn by the tornado and/or micro burst event of Thursday evening. The bole, or trunk, seems to have been well anchored, but all the limbs and branches were, shall we say, de-tasseled. For several hours, in fact, the limbs blocked the street. By…
-
Frogs
Some frogs from a recent trip to the Massachusetts/New Hampshire border: In a swimming pool. The clarity of the water allowed us to watch this green frog swim: it’s all in the meaty back legs, the forelimbs streamlined against the body. Two more green frogs in a small man-made pond. Up to five frogs have…
-
Monarchs
A passel of monarch butterfly caterpillars, Danaus plexippus, were denuding some milkweed around the waterworks at the Brooklyn Bridge Park recently. The monarch is probably our most familiar butterfly. The generation we see here may be the one that, come winged adulthood, makes the epic long march of a flight towards the cool cloud forests…
-
Dragonflies
Brooklyn Bridge Park is now open at its northern end, in the shadow of the great bridge. Here small pools and streams, part of the park’s landscaping and drainage system, are newly planted with a host of plants. And what freshwater body is complete without dragonflies? Recently, under a hot sun, I watched twelve-spotted skimmers,…
-
Munch, munch, munch
Friends, gardeners, farmers! I come to praise the tobacco hornworm, Manduca sexta, not bury it. You, on the other hand, may be quick to go snicker-snack! That I leave up to you and your conscience. I had been wondering why my sweet frying pepper, a first time plant for me, had not made any fruit…
-
Waste spaces
A differential grasshopper, Melanoplus differntialis, on some kind of smartweed. This clump of waste space-favoring weed was found on a downbeat block of Pacific Street in Boreum Hill, and just goes to show what happens when you look closely at even the commonest things.
-
Elegy for phytoplankton
It’s too bad the microscopic organisms that make up phytoplankton don’t have faces. These creatures live in both fresh and salt water and are the basis of aquatic food webs. There are numerous types, and there are bejillions of them. The trouble is that there used to be even bejillions more of them. According to…
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Backyard and Beyond 