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Walt Whitman Sunday
“I find I incorporate gneiss and coal and long-threaded moss and fruits and grains and esculent roots,/And am stucco’d with quadrupeds and birds all over.”
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May beetles
There are some 300 species of May beetles, genus Phyllophaga, in the U.S. and Canada east of the Rockies. We also call them “June bugs.” The first three photos are all of the same species, night visitors to Nantucket, MA, last week. They are rather cumbersome fliers. This one still has a bit of wing…
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Maize Field
“This used to be a parking lot/Now it’s all covered in flowers.” — David Byrne. And before it was a parking lot? It was covered in flowers then, too. And if not flowers, then the three sisters: corn, beans, and squash. At Bergen & Smith Streets, the three sisters grow in Brooklyn, thanks to Christina…
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A walk in Massachusetts
I took a walk last week in Bradford, which is just south of the Merrimack River from Haverhill. It was a hot day to start, but most of the road was shadowed by trees. I went down South Cross, Boxford and Lily Pond Roads, to the Four Corners Golf Course, and turned back, an easy…
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Catching Up
While I was out of town, I was away from all connections to the innernets for a full five days. One day, I had the opportunity to check my e-mail, but said, no thanks, why bother. I was drinking very good Scotch at the time, and eating homemade scallion & jack nachos in New Hampshire.…
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Beach-combing
I could spend the rest of my life beach-combing. You never know what will turn up. Previous discoveries have included an enormous leatherback turtle and a piece of whale vertebrae, although, admittedly, neither of these was in the New York Bight/Hudson River estuary system region. This small fish was. I found it, quite desiccated, on…
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Field Notes: Galls II
Today is Oak Apple Day, celebrating the restoration of Charles II, who famously hid in an oak during the English Civil War. Pity he got away. Anyway, this post is about oaks, oak galls, and/or oak gall wasps, whichever come first, not my vigorous and patriotic anti-royalism. When last we discussed galls, I kept the…
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Back 40 and Beyond Spiders
Look closely and you will see that this jumping spider, found in my backyard, has some prey. And you just have to look closely to see how well this one blends into the sand. Found on a Brooklyn beach. It had turned over on itself in a sandy depression and pulled in all its legs.…
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In the Back 40
A sunflower maggot fly, Strauzia longipennis. Scoping out my sunflowers, which have not yet budded. You can’t really see the red in the eye in my photo, so take a look at this image.
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Geological Ruminations
I wish I knew more about geology. It is not a subject suitable for book learnin’. Still, I’m interested. My samples of NYC regional rock include Manhattan schist, purplish diabase from the Palisades Sill, and Staten Island serpentine. But poor Brooklyn, being terminal moraine and outwash plain, is just a jumble of gravel and clays…
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Backyard and Beyond 