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.”

  • Foraging

    To put it in terms Republican voters for tyranny will understand, yesterday’s earthquake in the northeast and Monday’s eclipse mean the gods are very angry at their worship of a devil they’ve clothed in particularly ill-fitting messiah’s clothing. Meanwhile, did NYC Mayor-of-Pay-to-Play Eric Adams hear about the earthquake in advance from his underground crystal connection?…

    See more

    Foraging
  • Crow & Gull

    Unique white feathers as eyebrow on this corvid. Note sure if this is a Fish or an American Crow. Usually Fish predominate down here at the city’s edge, but I did hear an American just before spotting this one. Ring-billed Gull, a fellow scavenge, enters the scene. (Actually, off-stage there are several.)

    See more

    Crow & Gull
  • Killdeer on the Rocks

    Killdeer having been hanging out at and around Bush Terminal Park for a while now. They nest in a huge lot slated for a big film & TV studio, with, appropriately for such a manufactory of fantasy, a highly-suspect number of created jobs being. The one above was foraging along the edge of the water,…

    See more

  • Raptor Wednesday

    A meal for a male American Kestrel, although this time of year he may also be delivering to his mate. Spotted at the entrance of Bush Terminal Park, where I’ve never seen a Merlin. One of regulars, a passing-through migrant, a bird thinking about nesting locally? These two are getting it on, and taking nesting…

    See more

    Raptor Wednesday
  • Warning: Plant Porn

    Just wait until the fundamentalists find out that flowers have BOTH SEX PARTS. Cats and dogs living together! If this isn’t “Trans Indoctrination,” I don’t know what is. If you haven’t heard, some fascist canon-fodder got a book pulled from a middle grade community reading event in Virginia because it has an oak in it.…

    See more

    Warning: Plant Porn
  • Mammal Monday

    They eat dandelions, leaves and flowers.

    See more

    Mammal Monday
  • Cellophane Nests

    A south-facing slope with open patches of dirt. Look closer… Here’s somebody’s nest. I had to come back another day to see her in there. Unequal Cellophane Bee/Colletes inaequalis. Looks like another. And another. Like most of our wild bee species, Cellophane bees are solitary nesters. They may aggregate their nests in suitable terrain. There…

    See more

    Cellophane Nests
  • Golden One

    Golden Dung Fly. Hey, it’s a living.

    See more

    Golden One
  • Happiness Is A Warm Bluebird

    And a happy Bluebird is a well-fed Bluebird.

    See more

    Happiness Is A Warm Bluebird
  • Raptor Wednesday

    The female. The nest? Sure looks like it, after all. Within a minute of her entry into the hole, the pigeons were back. These showed up across the street during the two days I didn’t pass by. These will provide quite the smorgasbord for a growing Kestrel family.

    See more

    Raptor Wednesday