birding
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Xmas with the Owls
The Snowy Owl invasion is astonishing. Fifteen were sighted in Brooklyn on the Christmas Bird Count on the 21st, an unprecedented number. We saw four this past Saturday. This particular bird was flushed by a couple walking across the grasslands, where they shouldn’t have been (but all the signs have disappeared). The flushing meant it…
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Shameless Teaser
We’ll be spending the whole week with Brooklyn’s Snowy Owls, Bubo scandiacus. Yes, never mind endless repeats of A Christmas Story (“You’ll shoot your eye out!”), Planet of the Apes sequels (“Damn them all to hell!”), It’s A Wonderful Life If You Have a Guardian Angel, and the National Concussion League, here at B&B it’s…
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Wood Duck
Wood Duck (Aix sponsa) hanging out with the Northern Shovelers (Anas clypeata).
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Snowy Snowies
The 114th Annual Xmas Bird Count is underway. Brooklyn’s survey was on Saturday. It was a stormy day: any reasonable animal should have been hunkered down at home. Consequently, borough totals were the lowest since 1981: 110 species, with generally low numbers of individual birds. This is continuing to be the Year of the Snowy…
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Downy, Honeylocust
The sound was like typist behind a closed door, in an office with thick carpets. It was subtle. In the clamor of the city, we must strive to hear the subtle sounds, and Green-Wood, wind-swept atop the moraine, is a fine place for the subtleties. This Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) was pecking away at Honeylocust…
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Snowy Owls Here, There, Everywhere
In the last week I’ve heard about half a dozen Snowy Owls (Bubo scandiacus) on the edges of Jamaica Bay, all within the bounds of NYC. Elsewhere, bird watchers in New England, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwestern states are reporting unusually large numbers of these tundra natives. This is a major irruption year, perhaps the largest in…
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Ruddy
A female Ruddy Duck (Oxyura jamaicensis). Preening here, and rather successfully keeping her usually upright tail, a helpful field mark for this small duck, submerged.
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The Surveyor
Perched on an obelisk. Wind-ruffled.Unruffled by us.And the namesake of an adult Red-Tailed Hawk, Buteo jamaicensis. First year birds will not yet have red-colored tail feathers. But the tell-tale speckled V shape on the back (actually the wings) is another good field mark for the species. The same bird, or just as easily another, since…
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The Unfeathered Bird
This remarkable book goes well with chicken and, I would think, a nice dry white wine that hasn’t seen the inside of an oak barrel. Because a chicken is the closest most of us ever get to a featherless bird. Or, given the season, you could go with a turkey. Both of these birds are…
Backyard and Beyond 