If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you may remember this memorable picture from 2015. The other night, I saw this very picture in a Zoom presentation by the Torrey Botanical Society. It was credited to somebody else! What the what? Not just anybody, but one of Trump’s criminal hacks, who was in…

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Two very recently cut trees about ten feet apart. Somebody has been beetle-larvaing through the heartwood of this one.

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Examples of Gray Squirrel dreys seen during a walk in Green-Wood. These twig and leaf structures are summer nests. In winter, they get into more substantial places, like tree cavities, the walls of old buildings, etc., which is also where they give birth.

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Two blocks out the door, I see three American Crows chasing a young Red-tailed Hawk. A couple more crows join in, but the hawk, probably the youngster frequently seen around Sunset Park this season, flies out of sight. Twenty minutes later inside Green-Wood, I see a pair of RTs circling each other. Twenty-five minutes after…

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My dearheart is exploring bryophytes. These are mosses, liverworts, and, most obscurely, hornworts (there are approximately 220 species of hornworts in the world). These tiny plants typically require a healthy dose of magnification to identify. And when you’re looking at a little clump of bryophyte through a microscope, you may see such local community members…

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This kind of Auricularia Wood Ear Fungi is a combination of suede-like exterior and a smooth, inky, human skin-like interior. When it’s dead, it’s brittle and shriveled. Like a used, frozen Kleenex tissue.

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A balled & burlapped White Oak/Quercus alba sapling, from a nursery in Millstone, New Jersey, was waiting to be planted in Green-Wood recently. I noticed that the tree was hosting some galls: Acraspis pezomachoides, by the look of them. As with the galls on Swamp White Oaks/Q. bicolor planted on the street, this is undoubtedly…

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A collection of large hardwood trunks cut down in Green-Wood have been laid out by the Dell Water. The fungi are doing their stuff on them. Crystal Brain/Myxarium nucleatum Diatrype Gilled Polypore/Trametes betulina Other Trametes And, under the bark of Beech/Fagus, are the curvy paths of beetle larvae…

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I added 211 new species to my iNaturalist tally this year, even if I can’t be quite sure of species-level ID in every case. Above are two of them: a scale insect that may be Oystershell Scale/Lepidosaphes ulmi and one of their predators, a Chilocorus genus twice-stabbed lady beetle. Ah, but which one? iNat’s robot…

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