-
In Green-Wood
Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery is a remarkable place year ’round, but this is the richest season for its natural history. The blush of a crab apple. An Alien-like cicada exuvia. Green frog in the Valley Water. Feral honey bee hive. Cautious frog. I’m not sure of the species. The Valley Water has green frogs (big), bull…
-
Geological Ruminations II
A trip to Iceland concentrates the mind on the subject of volcanism. Split between the separating-at-two-centimeters-a-year North American and Eurasian plates, Iceland is astride a tremendously deep plume of magma known as a hot spot. It has some major volcanoes, including Grimsvotn, Katla, Hekla, Krafla, and Laki. In 1963, a whole new island, Surtsey, named…
-
Community Gardens Need Your Help
The operating authority for community gardens not held in trust is ending in September. New rules have been proposed by both Parks & Recreation and Housing Preservation & Development, the two city departments that control the land under the gardens. Many gardeners and community members feel the proposed new rules just aren’t strong enough. The…
-
Cicadas. Part II.
The cicada killer wasp, Sphecius speciosus, which can get up to two inches in length. Yikes! It’s one of the largest wasps in North America, but if you aren’t a cicada you shouldn’t worry much. As you can see, it’s a gentle vegetarian: this one was collecting nectar out at the Saltmarsh Nature Center in…
-
Cicadas. Part I.
For me, the sound of summer — hot, humid, stinking summer, the doggiest of Dog Days — is the rising and falling whine of cicadas up in trees. I first became acquainted with cicadas in the Midwest, where hot and humid go together like deep fat frying batter and food on a stick at a…
-
Jimsonweed
Know your poisons. This is Jimsonweed, Datura stramonium, also known as devil’s trumpet (from the flowers), thorn apple (from the fruit) and several other names. It’s a member of the nightshade family that happens, unlike its cousins the tomato and the eggplant, to be poisonous, deadly throughout, from root to seed. Cattle and sheep have…
-
Final words on Iceland?
You really should go. Jawbone, vertebrae, and rib of a large toothed whale, probably a sperm whale. Exhortation at Vogafjos in Myvatn. A most excellent saga of an adventure.
-
Wren Revisions
One of my favorite scientific names has long been that of the winter wren: Troglodytes troglodytes. “Troglodyte” means cave-dweller. When the binomial system uses the same word for genus and species, it’s considered the purest manifestation of the genus; all other species within the genus are compared to it. It’s the wren’s wren, so to…
-
Fulmars
In Arnarstapi harbor. I was introduced to the northern fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis) some years ago in the Scottish Highlands. They spend most of their decades-long lives at sea, but breed on far northern cliffs, of which there are many in Iceland. So they were a constant presence on our Iceland trip, a welcome return to…
-
Oooh, oology
Hrafn and smyrill eggs. We saw several ravens, most notably two sporting above the cliffs at Vik i Myrdal. Perhaps they were Huginn and Muninn, Odin’s raven familiars, who served as his aides, Thought and Memory. We never saw a merlin, although others in our group did. The eggs above were from one of two…
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Backyard and Beyond 