birding
-
Raptor Wednesday
A Red-tailed Hawk flew by with a Gray Squirrel hanging from its talons, the long bushy tail a banner of mammalian defeat. The hawk landed in a tree and spent maybe a minuted pulling at the mammal with its beak, no doubt ending its life. But the bird then moved to another part of the…
-
Songbirds
Finally, some songbirds! I’ve spent a lot of time in Green-Wood this winter and it has been barren of some of the usual winter bird suspects. So it was good to run into Tufted Titmouse, White-breasted Nuthatch, Golden-crowned Kinglet (rather unexpectedly) and a small flock of American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) all hanging close together on…
-
Superb Owl
Bubo virginianusA Great Horned Owl on a recent winter day. (For completists, there actually is a Lesser Horned Owl, found in southern South America.) Click here for more superb owls. Faux superb owl… and friends.
-
Nests
You might not think this is a good time of year to be talking about nests, but we found two interesting examples of the more than a few you can see in trees now that the leaves are gone. This was upside-down on the grass recently in Green-Wood near a conifer. How did it survive…
-
Sappy
Sap wells drilled by… a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, presumably. The birds will lap up the sap and any insects attracted to the slightly sweet liquid. Other birds may gather at such wells to eat the insects that are also attracted to the sap. This insect gathering is, of course, mostly a non-winter habit. This winter, there…
-
Mussel-breaking
This Herring Gull* dropped this mussel on the beach twice, to no effect. The first drop on a parking lot, however, was quite successful. *A sharp-eyed reader caught my initial error in calling this a Ring-billed Gull.
-
See Under: Trees
Exploring the shady underbellies of conifers this time of year can reveal some deep… uh… stuff. Yes. there’s quite a lot of excrement, for one thing, although that is by no means confined to the base of conifers. I’ll spare you pictures of the turd-like turds, but here are a couple of interesting byproducts. Not…
-
Raptor Wednesday
December 15th. Every bird is unique, but we rarely have the opportunity to study them that closely. But this yearling Red-tailed Hawk has quite a lot of scapular markings, the wide white on the wings. This is broader than general for our local Red-tails (the species is found across North America with lots of variety).…
-
Water, Water, Not Everywhere In Winter
Brant (Branta bernicla), geese who visit the region in winter.A trio of Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) in the mid-zone for scale. These two geese species share a genus and look superficially similar from afar. This was fresh water rippling out into Jamaica Bay, and everybody was happy to get some. Last week it was…
-
Uncommon Common Goldeneye
A male Common Goldeneye, spotted recently off Red Hook.A rare bird for Upper New York Bay. Seen in ones and twos and occasionally threes. Locally, Jamaica Bay is better. I’ve never been this close.Where pop, Cold War, and birding intersect: bird-watcher Ian Fleming’s Jamaica home was named Goldeneye, whence the Bond title (or was it…
Backyard and Beyond 