birding
-
Raptor Wednesday
We had to be away from the #BrooklynKestrels Lookout for a week. All the trees leafed out in our absence. Except for this bare branch sticking upright across the street. Yes! The wee falcons are still going strong. Yesterday morning around 8:30 the male announced his presence with swirling call. He had prey. The female…
-
House
Whose nest is this?Why, it’s Passer domesticus, of course. The House Sparrow. Usually stuffed into a hole in a building, or, better yet, a stop light pole, this tornado of dried grasses is generally invisible. House Sparrows are unrelated to the New World sparrows; sometimes they are called weaver finches, and looking at the woven…
-
Bird Boxing
It’s a little late in the year for this, but I just found this book. It’s a very good place to start if you want to set up and maintain — stress on the maintain — bird homes for the next breeding season and the ones after that. Habitat, siting, building, monitoring, maintaining are all…
-
Raptor Wednesday
When I spotted this male American Kestrel on the ground and some of the smaller tombstones, I thought, whoa, a way of hunting I’ve never seen before! But look at that left wing. It’s damaged. I followed. This, of course, made the bird move away from me. I formulated a make-shift falcon-catching situation out of…
-
Kestrels
This male is a hell of a provider. I’ve seen three feedings per day recently, in which the male will bring prey to a perch, pluck and eat some, and then noisily give to the female. Caught a glimpse of her. She’s coming out of the nest to take food. He has popped into the…
-
Portrait of a Kingfisher
Female Belted Kingfisher. I half wondered if the binomial Megaceryle alcyon had anything to do with big hair…. The genus name is from the Greek for “great sea bird,” or a king fisher, if you will. The specific epithet is from a Greek myth: Alcyon mourned so for her drowned husband that the gods turned…
-
Raptor Wednesday
Other American Kestrels. Six or seven blocks away from home as the falcon flies is Green-Wood Cemetery. From one corner of the cemetery, you can see the top corner of my apartment building, so naturally I wonder if the #BrooklynKestrels pair have hunted there.This is a male I saw recently in Green-Wood, above Sylvan Water.…
-
Look What the Wind Blew In
Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe). Chipping Sparrow (Spizella passerina).Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus).Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias).Palm Warbler (Setophaga palmarum).Green Heron (Butorides virescens). An ornithological note: if you’re like me, you probably learned that few female birds sing. Oops! In about two thirds of songbird species, they actually do. Talk about silencing female voices!
-
Sweet Carolinas
Carolina Wrens. Thryothorus ludovicianus. Two at the Dell Water. Full-throated.This one was rooting about in a crotch of a tree about six feet up. Yup, that’s mostly raccoon shit.
Backyard and Beyond 