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Field Notes: Four Sparrow Marsh
Birding, or any other natural history pursuit, depends upon the kindness of strangers and friends. We all learn from each other. This in prelude to saying I have no anxiety of influence about this: I followed the lead of the City Birder and went to Four Sparrow Marsh yesterday. It was my first time there.…
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Natural Object: Paleontological Find
Brooklyn, which is located at the mouth of what Walt Whitman called “fish-shaped Paumanok,” using a Native American word for what we now call Long Island, is, geologically speaking, loosey-goosey. We are sitting on glacial till, the rubble (sands, clays, gravels, erratics, etc.) pushed down here during the Pleistocene by the ice. (There was…
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Insects as outlaws
I went to hear Hugh Raffles read from and talk about his new book, Insectopedia, yesterday. The book is about the entangled intersection between humans and insects, and the profound ambiguity of that intersection (from our perspective). I haven’t read it yet. But I was really struck by something he said. He mentioned an Elias…
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In the Back 40: Mummified Millipede
I found this in the Back 40 (inches) last week. It’s probably a leftover from last year. The Back 40, to bring you up to speed, is my small, fenced & walled concrete slab of backyard. Here, near the west coast of Brooklyn, USA, I get what I think is a fair (and wondrous) amount…
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Quince blooming in the rain
The local quince tree, a cultivar of Cydonia oblonga. This is not your average NYC street tree; it’s not even on the official street tree list. But there you go. It’s here, it’s blooming, and it usually fruits — smaller pomes than you see in the supermarket. Actually, you probably don’t see quince in the…
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Interior insect
I found this insect working its way up the bathroom wall Sunday while I was flossing. I love the sharp triangular shape of the wings. If anybody knows what it is, or where it fits among the hexapoda, let me know. It was less than a quarter-inch long, which made for challenging photography, and a…
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Scolopax minor
It was an unusually cold Saturday night, but damn it, it was spring, and the timberdoodles were in town. We went out to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge to listen for them. The American woodcock, Scolopax minor, as it is more formally known, is a shorebird that isn’t. It is related to the sandpipers, and looks…
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Living with wildlife
I found this fine website on living with urban wildlife set up by Portland OR’s Audubon. It’s on the other coast, so they have some different species, but the ideas are the same. The border between nature and city has always been permeable, and as cities expand the border grows even less sure. It behooves…
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In the archives
Foot- and end- notes are like the underbrush: it’s crowded down there, and you have to wade through a mess of grass or leaves to find something juicy. I was on the trail of a book recently, sent there I do not remember why, and found a copy at the NYPL. This was William Beebe’s…
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Field Notes: In Prospect (plus haiku)
Willow, weep. Grackle, advance. Cocoon, open…. This is somewhat similar to the one I saw last week, but attached to a lamp post instead of suspended from a twig. Also, it’s darker. This one is just as big, though, just over an inch long, half or more wide. A big fat moth? What do you…
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Backyard and Beyond 