Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

  • Pod-pecker

    Sounding like a typewriter, this Downy Woodpecker was tapping away at Honey Locust seed pods. The woodpecker’s holes are quite different from the exit holes of the creatures I think the bird is hunting. Here’s one of the pods I found on the ground. There were two 3mm diameter exit holes on each side of…

    See more

    Pod-pecker
  • Chickadees

    See more

    Chickadees
  • Blue Birds

    Unexpected. Always welcome, thrillingly so. But not, perhaps, by perennially territorial Mockingbirds. I’ll be leading a Brooklyn Bird Club walk on Saturday, 11/23, starting at 8 a.m. in Green-Wood Cemetery.

    See more

    Blue Birds
  • More Heron

    See more

    More Heron
  • Heron

    See more

    Heron
  • Corvids

    The Raven on the right is farther away than the American Crows, but still noticeable larger. Bonus Red-winged Blackbirds passing by.

    See more

    Corvids
  • Ocean Double Feature

    This is a great book combo: Helen Czerski’s The Blue Machine explains why planet Earth should really be called planet Ocean. Susan Casey’s The Underworld takes us on journeys to the deepest parts of this Ocean world, the places until very recently we knew almost nothing about. A physicist and oceanographer, Czerski explains how the ocean works and how…

    See more

  • Buckeye

    Two consecutive days of Buckeye sightings around Valley Water; might have been the same one? Dismay. Anger. Fear.

    See more

    Buckeye
  • Late Blooms, Part II

    Tansy madness continued on November 1st.

    See more

    Late Blooms, Part II