birds
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Recent Birds
Eastern Willet.Red-winged Blackbird female.Tree Swallow male.The male was perched above this nest box with a female boldly covering the entrance.Red-breasted Mergansers.Yellow-crowned Night-heron. House Wren.
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American Robin
May 8th. May 9th. May 15th. There’s a fourth in the back right. On May 16, the nest was empty. Young American Robins leave the nest before they can fly. People sometimes find them and think they’ve fallen out and need help. But they are fine. Unless the cat is out, in which case put…
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Outtakes
A really good photograph of a bird is somewhat deceiving. The human eye rarely has it so good. And this time of year, with migrating songbirds acrobatically flitting about in thickly leafed-out trees, spotting and tracking a bird is quite a challenge. Ditto the photographing. The long lenses and flashes necessary for money shots, if…
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Raptor Wednesday
Brooklyn’s airspace can be crowded. On Raven Day, the subject of my last two posts, I watched a Red-tail Hawk and Common Raven chase each other. Another Red-tail joined the fray, but didn’t stay long. Sometimes the R chased the RT, sometimes the RT chased the R.Both birds were quite vocal: hoarse guttural calls from…
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More Ravens!
Books have been written by the intelligence and culture of ravens. It’s extraordinary to be near these largest of the songbirds, listening to their hoarse chatter. They’ve certainly figured out how to live in urban areas. There’s both the wild, in this case duck eggs, and the domestic, in this case chicken eggs from Costco.…
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Recent Birds
Spotted Sandpiper. A few have been working their way around the edges of the ponds in Green-Wood.Black-throated Blue Warbler.Eastern Kingbird.Hooded Warbler female.Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Female, much plainer than the showy male.Most of our migrants are insectivores, but these big-beaks are seed-crushers. *** George Boorujy’s Gang of Warblers is now available as a print. Very reasonably priced,…
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Red-headed Excavations
This Red-headed Woodpecker kept going in head-first and emerging tail-first to toss wood scraps away. This was in Virginia. It’s unusual to see one of these in NYC, although sometimes juveniles will show up — they don’t have the flag-like color blocking. During the winter of ’13-’14, a juvenile spent the winter in Green-Wood and…
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Raptor Wednesday
An Osprey circled over Sylvan Water looking for sign of fish below. Sylvan Water, haunt of, at various times, cormorants, kingfishers, and herons, was not producing breakfast for this huge raptor.Note the toes, swept back under the tail. When these birds dive, they move their feet forward to strike and grasp their fishy prey. Shallow…
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A Behavioral Note
There are no points for brains when it comes to testosterone. During breeding season, some male birds repeatedly attack their own reflections. They think the reflections are other males. I’ve seen a Rudy-crowned kinglet go after himself in a highly reflective sculpture.Towhees are known for it this, too. This one did it to a line…
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Recent Birds
Look who’s already hatched here in Brooklyn, while birds like Baltimore Orioles have only just begun to build their nests. We have baby falcons at 55 Water St., too. Future eaters of Robins? Ah, well, everybody’s got to make a living.Most warblers keep moving on through to nest further north, but some like the Yellow…
Backyard and Beyond 