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.”

  • The Book of Beaver

    I’ve seen a lot more beaver sign than actual beavers. Flooded areas, dams, lodges, and especially gnawed-off tree trunks: beavers leave a lot of signs. Castor canadensis wrote themselves across most of the continent before the fashion for beaver felt swept over from Europe. There, the native beaver, Castor fiber, had been mostly trapped out.…

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  • Autumn

    Suddenly, Autumn Meadowhawks! Thursday’s sunny temperatures in the mid 60sF brought Sympetrum vicinum out in force. Maybe more than I’ve ever seen? These are the last Odonata of the season, migratory Common Green Darners will continue to pass though, so I always keep an eye out for them.

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  • Unusual Birds

    Recently, Green-Wood has been visited by a Great Cormorant/Phalacrocorax carbo. A Western Kingbird/Tyrannus verticalis. And a Lark Sparrow/Chondestes grammacus. First time I’ve seen any of these here in the cemetery. The Lark S was in the new meadow, which the legions trampled though like Visigoths. And more sad news: the Great Cormorant…

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  • Goldenrod Hour

    A last frenzied hurrah of activity…

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  • Raptor Wednesday

    That seems to be an eel, which must have been carried in from the coast a few blocks away. Not bad for an afternoon’s sightings in Green-Wood. Earlier in the day, two American Kestrels were overhead of me on 4th Avenue and 12th Street in Manhattan. Here’s one of them:

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  • Expanding Lizards

    The new meadow in Green-Wood has attracted the Northern Italian Wall Lizards. So many nooks and crannies! So many sunning places! So many things to eat! (And now that fall has really come, presumably so many places to abide the winter.)

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  • Belting Belted

    I mean, they almost always announce themselves with a belted-out rattling cry.

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  • Gall Wasps

    I’ve been sending Cynipid galls to the Forbes Lab at the University of Iowa. They’re doing a genetic sequencing project on these oak gall wasps. (Here’s is a great introduction to this fascinating lifestyle.) But since these are appealing structures, other animals want in as well: inquilines may or may not crowd out or kill…

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  • Scale

    Eastern Carpenter Bee: one of our biggest bees. Bramble Mason Wasp: one of our a medium-sized wasps. One of our smaller bees, about 5mm long: Dialictus subgenus of Lassioglossum. There are a LOT of tiny wasp species. This one isn’t even that small. It’s twice as long as a 2mm long gall wasp. (Not counting…

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  • Yellow-shafted Northern Flicker

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