birding
-
Young Night-herons
A pair of Yellow-crowned Night-herons (Nyctanassa violacea) nested on Governor’s Island this year, a first — in ages, at least. I haven’t seen the nest, but I did run into this youngster over the weekend at Bush Terminal Park. No idea where the natal spot was, of course; YCNH also nest in Jamaica Bay, and…
-
Morning’s Heronry
Just before Bush Terminal Park opened yesterday morning, we had a trifecta of herons. There were three Black-crowned Night Herons (Nycticorax nycticorax) the adult above, and two juveniles.One of the youngsters stuck around as parent and sibling (?) flew off “kwoking” to this Cottonwood:This tree also hosted a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) — barely…
-
White’s Selborne
Have you read Richard Mabey’s rousing defense of nature writing? You should. I’ll wait here until you return. Mabey quite rightly marks the beginnings of nature writing in English with Gilbert White (1720-1793), the British country parson whose Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne I’ve finally come around to reading. Mostly: I picked up a…
-
Gather Ye Terns While You May
Gather in the optical sense, of course. Common Tern (Sterna hirundo) have been breeding in New York Harbor for the last few years, a new and exciting development in a world where the environmental/ecological news is usually bad. They use the abandoned piers on Governor’s Island, with some help from friendly bipeds (cf. NYC Audubon)…
-
Nidification
In the last week, I’ve seen House Sparrow and Northern Cardinal nestlings, gaping mouths squawking. It’s late in the breeding season, but some birds, especially the non-migratory locals who started early, may be on their second brood of the year. This Rock Pigeon (Columba livia) is using a train station window-well for its cliff-face nest.…
-
Always Check That Bird
Because the assumption “pigeon” may usually be correct, but it isn’t always. Something about that silhouette…Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus).At the top of 1st Avenue. You may remember that on January 1st, I found a pair of Ravens (Corvus corax) courting near here. Lately, four Ravens have been seen in the area, so presumably the nest-building…
-
Windhover
A Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus), the “dapple-dawn-drawn-falcon,” as Hopkins alliterated to the nth degree, hovering over the Northumberland beach. Hopkins’s poem The Windhover, although another of his mash notes to his Invisible Boyfriend, captures something of the impression made by these birds hovering with head to the wind and eyes to the ground, searching for…
-
An Errant Whooper and A Quiz
As we neared the near-end of our first day’s walk along the Northumberland Coast, we spotted two swans in the distance. One was a familiar Mute Swan (Cygnus olor), invasive in the U.S., but native in the UK (and very present on the Tweed, where we started our walk) and the other, pictured below, a…
-
Even More British Birds
A very vocal male Reed Bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus) popped out of the dunes. At Long Nanny along the Northumberland shore, we ran into a fence across the beach. As we were trying to figure out the best way to proceed, a volunteer National Trust ranger emerged from the dunes, where she’d had her eye on…
-
British Birds II
Robin (Erithacus rubecula). Yup, looks nothing like ours.The Blackbird (Turdus merula), on the otherhand, is much like our American Robin (Turdus migratorius), an omnipresent thrush.Tufted Duck (Aythya fuligula).Lesser Black-backed Gulls (Larus fuscus): we’re seeing more and more of these birds on this side of the Atlantic.Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs), the source of the frog-call.Pied Wagtail (Motacilla…
Backyard and Beyond 