birding
-
Raptor Wednesday
Sharpie! The little Accipiter, Sharp-shinned Hawk, Accipiter striatus.This was the bird who did not like our male American Kestrel back in the middle of February.But it wasn’t all sortie after sortie.This is a juvenile female. The males are substantially smaller: on average just a midge smaller than an American Kestrel, in fact. The one time…
-
Thryothorus ludovicianus
A pair of Carolina Wrens were exploring a slope in Green-Wood.No crevice went unexplored in the search for insects, eggs, and cocoons..
-
Kestrel Mania, Part XXX
The American Kestrels were extremely busy yesterday morning. During Wednesday’s storm, I saw neither skin nor feather of them, as expected. But the male was out bright and early in the rich tones of dawn on Thursday. He soon flew over to the chimney, and several minutes later the female landed on the nearby roof…
-
Dawn Kestrel
Sunrise on the American Kestrel male this morning, a few minutes before he and the female mated on their favorite roof-top pipe.
-
Raptor Wednesday
An old Red-tailed Hawk nest being refurbished. Over a couple of weekends, I watched Red-tailed Hawks bringing new sticks to this nest.The last time I was watching, one hawk perched nearby.While this one did all the work. Unseen here are the Blue Jays buzzing the hawk as it scouted a nearby tree for nesting material.…
-
American Kestrel Update
Tis the season for copulation.Note how the male’s talons are bunched up. He can’t, after all, grab hold of her back with those sharp claws. I noticed this in an Instragramer’s photo of mating Osprey recently, where the scale was rather larger but the principle the same. Bird mating is brief. The balancing act —…
-
Cyanocitta cristata
Or at least one lone feather from a Blue Jay.
-
Raptor Wednesday
A crop of Cooper’s! These were all seen on the same day recently in Green-Wood. Four sightings, I think of three individual birds, but possibly four. I inadvertently flushed the first (seen in first two photos). It was hiding in an evergreen thicket; I didn’t see the bird until it flew out and landed nearby.…
-
Corvus corax
On New Year’s Day, 2015, I saw a pair of Common Ravens at the eastern terminus of 39th St. in Sunset Park. They were canoodling and grooming each other. A mated pair in Brooklyn? When was the last time that happened? Were they here when Europeans arrived? In more recent decades, ravens stuck to remote…
-
The Amateurs
The root of the word amateur is the Latin for love. In our hyper-specialized world, “amateur” has become a put-down, which is a shame. The study of birds begun with amateurs. And it’s one of the few contemporary branches of science where amateurs can still regularly rub shoulders, or wings if you prefer, with professionals.…
Backyard and Beyond 