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.”

  • “First” Monarch

    First one I’ve managed to photograph this year, I mean. This is the second I’ve seen this year. With the other female I saw today, that makes three! And, right next to the meeting place for today’s Green-Wood member’s walk: A Monarch egg on the underside of Common Milkweed.

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  • Extrafloral Nectaries Season

    Parancistrocerus leionotus. Euodynerus hidalgo ssp. boreoorientalis. These potter wasps are licking up nectar produced by American Trumpet Vine buds before they bloom. Such extraflora nectaries are a huge hit with wasps, bees, ants, beetles, and other critters. Find a good patch of this wall-covering plant, and appeal of sugary carbohydrates will never again be obscure. Great Golden…

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  • Edge of Sylvan

    Canada Greese, European Starlings, Pond Slider, Wood Duck. Missing here is a fishing Great Egret and a permanently teed-off male Red-winged Blackbird diving and yelling at it. Orange Bluet males: above recently emerged from exuviae; below in full adult coloring. Amberwing and snapper…

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  • Sawflies

    A pair of mating Hibiscus Sawfly/Atomacera decepta. Well, maybe. They are on a hibiscus…. Sawflies are pretty hard to ID by photo. And this, I suspect, is one their larvae, defoliating another Malvaceae family plant. Sawflies are not flies; they’re akin to wasps. Note the two pairs of wings seen so well in the adult…

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  • Crows

    I’ve been waking up around sunrise to the sound of crows in the neighborhood. This red-mouthed fledgling was in this London Plane for at least three hours one recent weekend morning. Sounded like Fish Crow, but then don’t they all when they’re young?

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  • Raptor Wednesday

    It’s lean times for raptor-viewing.

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  • New Jays

    Parent First fledgling. Second fledgling. For Blue Jays, these youngsters were being very vocally subtle. They hopped along branches like monkeys. As soon as I was out from under the drip line of this big maple, the sounds ramped up explosively.

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  • Meadow

    You can’t actually tell from this photo, but some two dozen Chimney Swifts swooped overhead as numerous dragonflies patrolled just above the grasses. The hunting must have been good here, across the street from the bus terminal and train yard. Nearby, under more canopy, vast numbers of non-biting midges scurried from my feet. It was…

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  • Ode to the Odes

    American Amberwing and his shadow. Two of my best photos of a will-not-stop baskettail. In three widely different locations, over several years, I’ve yet to see one perch, nor succeeded in identifying one to species. Who can get enough of the wonderfully named Orange Bluet? Immature Fragile Forktail, I think. Eastern Pondhawk female. Blue Dasher…

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  • Barn Swallows

    These are pretty unsatisfying pictures, but zoomy zounds! they’re hard to capture. (5th Ave. and 25th St. here in Brooklyn.)

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