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Field Notes: Turtle ID help requested
Most of the turtles in our local fresh waters are eastern red eared sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans). I posted a picture of two of them last week in Green-Wood; note the distinctive red stripe behind the eye; note also that rough carapace. This is an invasive species, now pretty naturalized, that was, and I suppose…
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Field Notes: JBWR Beetles UPDATED
Photographs by N. Arnzen. There are something like 350,000 described species of beetles, order Coleoptera, and presumably many more that are not described. I once read that there are more species of beetles than all other species of animals combined, which may not be right, but it does give you some sense of their dominance…
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Field Notes: Honey Bees
Gerry at Global Swarming has some wonderful shots of honey bees working the red-gold pussy willow (Salix gracilistyla) at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I spent some time there on Saturday. (My camera battery passed away before I got any “action” shots.) This species of pussy willow, native to Japan & Korea, was one of the…
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Natural Object: Cones
I have trouble distinguishing the baldycypress (T. distichum) and dawn redwood (M. glyptostroboides) trees, but the cones are quite different. Above, the baldycypress cones are to the left, the dawn redwood to the right. I have a house full of pods, seeds, and cones, I’ve never found very many baldycypress cones before. They break up…
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Field Notes: Prospect
With spring here — bursting, budding, crawling, squawking — the changes seen out there will be daily, impossible to keep up with. For there isn’t only the seeing, there’s the recording, and there are only so many hours in the day. On Friday, I walked through Prospect Park. The highlights were two species of butterflies,…
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In the Back 40
A little proto-spring cleaning in the Back 40 reveals some early signs of life. Just in time! Some greenery, mostly tenacious sunflowers just popping up, and a little patch of moss. But there were some creepy-crawlies in the mix: Earth worm. Found under a pot, moved into the compost bin. I think these are spider…
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Above Brooklyn
A perfect morning, clear, clean, and warming up. Carrying fourteen pounds of feline for his appointment with a… uh, cat scanner… I saw the following birds: busy, loud house sparrows, staking out their nesting sites, squabbling over nesting material; starlings, sailing like kites; a lone silent crow flapping by; at least one noisy blue jay…
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Natural object: Ginkgo
This is the tip of a knobby spur twig of a gingko branch that had been knocked down in the snow some weeks back in Prospect Park. I brought it home and popped it in some water to see if it would leaf-out. Slowly, but surely, it is. It has an undersea look to it…
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Field Notes: Green-Wood
Top: l-r, monk parakeet; red maple (?); dawn redwood cones. Middle: bald-faced hornet comb; honey bees; honey bee nest. Bottom: leeches on turtle plastron; live red sliders; witch hazel in bloom. Took a walk through Green-Wood Cemetery today. This Victorian garden necropolis sits upon the flank of Brooklyn’s Harbor Hill Moraine, making it the highest…
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Mimus polyglottos
The Back 40 (Inches) is what I call my rented backyard. It is in the southeast corner pocket of a Brooklyn, NY, USA, block. Next door to the south, over a brick wall, is a double Land Rover parking space sandwiched between two ruins (house, carriage house; all owned by the very idle rich). Next…
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Backyard and Beyond 