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Stalking the wild raptor… .. certainly is easier when it comes to Merlins. These small falcons (Falco columbarius) characteristically perch for long periods of time in prominent locations. I had time to close in on the odd shape in a distant tree and get around to have the sun behind me. The bird was unperturbed.…

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A dawn flurry of Feral Pigeons can mean… A Coopers Hawk fox-in-the-hen-house situation. Meanwhile… To fly from the lordly perch atop the giant smokestack on 2nd Avenue to Green-Wood Cemetery at 5th Avenue, Red-tail Hawks have to pass through a gauntlet of American Kestrels. There’s a Kestrel nest site on 4th Avenue, which is not…

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November 6th, a big Isabella Tiger Moth/Pyrrharctia isabella caterpillar. November 11: Clouded Sulphur/Colias philodice. Was surprised by this one. It was about 50F out, though brightly sunny. November 12:Cabbage White/Pieris rapae. What a season for this ubiquitous butterfly! This is often the first butterfly species seen in the spring, barring the Mourning Cloaks. They probably…

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Female dragonflies and damselflies tend to hunt away from waterbodies, where mating and ovipositing take place. For instance, I rarely see female Autumn Meadowhawks/Sympetrum vicinum on their own. They’re obviously out there, but I generally only see them when they’re mating. Here a pair form the Odonata mating wheel: the male grasps the female behind…

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An Eastern White Pine/Pinus strobes aflock with Red-winged Blackbirds/Agelaius phoeniceus. This was the first of two White Pines I found full of Red-wings this day. It might very well have been the same flock. I got better pictures at the second White Pine. But then: The locally perching Merlin/Falco columbarius took off and flushed them.…

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American Winter Ants/Prenolepis imparis herding Oleander Aphids/Aphis nerii on underside of Common Milkweed/Asclepias syriaca. The ants harvest the aphids’ excretions, or honeydew, and protect the aphids from photographer’s fingers and the like.

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A female Downy Woodpecker/Dryobates pubescens on a Tuliptree/Liriodendron tulipifera. I heard a Red-bellied Woodpecker/Melanerpes carolinus above her… And caught a glimpse. A wee Brown Creeper/Certhia americana on a neighboring pine (above), flew to the woodpeckery Tuliptree to make it three foragers on the same tree at the same time.

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A female American Kestrel going after a Coopers Hawk. This is definitely the Kestrel’s territory, but… For the second time, the Kestrel seemed uninterested in the Merlin perched in a European Beech near her regular Chapel hangout. This tree is also a regular Kestrel perch. (This was the forth time I’ve seen a Merlin in…

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Gory edition. A young Red-tail with a rat. Long-memoried readers may recall last November, when another young Red-tail ate a pigeon on this same roof. That attracted crows, who came back for the remains left there. Unlike, say wings, all of rat is edible. This time, the hawk carried away the aft section of the…

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