birding
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The Morning Sun
Saturday dawned at 49F, the coldest day since some time back in the early spring. A small huddle of Palm Warblers were exploring Bush Terminal Park with me. A couple of hours later, I spotted this White-crowned Sparrow in Green-Wood. Earlier, when I entered G-W around 9:30, it was still cool but the sun was…
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Nighthawk Wednesday
Not quite Raptor Wednesday, but a good excuse to explore the nighthawks. They are not raptors, but their physical similarity in flight to hawks, specifically falcons, at dusk and dawn gives them their name. Perched, they look nothing like raptors. And perched is where you will find them during the day, if you find them.…
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Recent Birds
Sometimes they are not so close. Great Crested Flycatcher topside. Sometimes the lens make them seem closer than they actually are. Cape May Warbler. And sometimes they practically land right in front of you. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker in molt. More molt. Northern Mockingbird.
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Raptor Wednesday
A mewling squirrel brought this Red-tailed Hawk to my attention. They were in the same tree, which provided much more protection for the mammal than the open ground. Unsuccessful there, the hawk spent some time on an angel’s wing.
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Is This It?
I intended this to be a humorous send-off to summer. The Turkey Vultures were cleaning up the day after some jumped-up apes — reader, you know the species intimately — partied on the beach at Croton Point. Species that eat our garbage may be doing ok, but others not so much. God-damn, we are doing…
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Raptor Wednesday
Summer is quiet when it comes to raptors, unless you have American Kestrels breeding down the street.But now fall is in the air. This Red-tailed hawk perched on a #BrooklynKestrel landmark recently. One of the local falcons, now days generally heard more than seen, was not happy about it. The kestrel’s alarms calls got me…
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BioBlitz Notes
Birds are hard to capture with phone cameras, the standard way people enter information on iNaturalist. I led two bird groups of Macualay Honors College students on the BioBlitz Saturday. This is the only picture of a bird I put into iNaturalist. We tallied birds seen the old fashioned way, with paper and pencil. Macaulay…
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Raptor Wednesday
First off: we’ve had near daily American Kestrel sightings or hearings here at the H.Q. But today’s specimen sightings come from Green-Wood Cemetery. A female atop what may be the largest obelisk in a cemetery full of them. (Curious how Christians went in for this paganism in Victorian times.) Now here’s a male atop the…
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Catbird
Migrating, breeding, molting, migrating. While Gray Catbirds are resident year around along the Atlantic Coast up into Massachusetts, the vast majority leave NYC and head south come the fall. Before that, they molt into their basic, non-breeding plumage. This one in Prospect Park is in the midst of shaking out the old and growing in…
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An Ecosystem
On Monday, we started with cicadas. I’ve been trying to get a photo of a Cicada-killer Wasp with her six mitts on a cicada. Thrice now laden-wasps have zipped by me, white underside of their prey visible, but I haven’t been quick enough with the camera. ONce they land, the wasps are quite quick into…
Backyard and Beyond 