birds
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Winter Killdeer
Rocks, Ring-billed Gulls, and hey, a Killdeer! (You can’t see the rats inside the rocks, but when they scurry around in broad daylight, you know the tubular rodents are all over; suckers have always loved waterfronts.) Bush Terminal Park had breeding Killdeer last year.
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Dawn Corvids
One morning recently, a great parliament of crows flew over the apartment heading towards the bay. I estimated fifty at least. They boiled around the air column over the empty parking lot of the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, before turning right to head northish along the coast of Brooklyn. They must have been roosting inland.…
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Ravens
I usually hear them before I see them. Brooklyn’s Common Ravens regularly fly across the bow, the view from here down to the coast of Upper New York Bay. They are generally quite vocal, which helps to distinguish them from the crows from afar. In this case, the somewhat swine-like krongking was right overhead. The bird…
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Raptor Wednesday
Last week, we espied a Cooper Hawk with prey inside a yew. This week, we’re inside an arbor vitae. These hawks do like their cover.This could be the very same mature bird. This time, lunch was one of those white “doves” which are actually homing pigeons.This was the plucking site, under some nearby yews. Jays…
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Sapsucker Sign
Deep inside a yew canopy.The sap is running… well, okay, maybe ambling is a better description. I watched a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker chased off from here by a Red-bellied Woodpecker. The Red-bellied actually pinned the Sapsucker down to the ground for a brief moment, feathers outspread like a mantling raptor, before the birds separated. I’d never…
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Baeolophus bicolor
Wind-tussled Tufted Titmouse in a beech tree with a few old leaves hanging on. *** So last year was the fourth warmest year since 1850. It was slightly cooler than the top three warmest years since 1850… which were, in order, 2016, 2017, and 2015. This data is from BerkeleyEarth; NOAA and NASA haven’t been…
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What Goes?
Chipping Sparrow with some kind of growth under the bill. Any thoughts?That’s bird feed all around, spillage from a hanging feeder. There is an avian bill deformity virus, Avian Keratin Disorder, that has spread out from ground zero in Alaska. In that case, the bills grow much longer than usual. This looks more tumorous, but…
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Hooded Mergansers
Shouldn’t be too long before these come into their breeding finery.
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Bufflehead
The purples and greens in this male Bufflehead are pretty subtle, especially on an overcast day. But that bufflehead!So named because of the resemblance to a buffalo’s head. If you say so. Was Dewlapped Duck not considered?One of our winter visitors, they bred much further north. They’re cavity nesters, and small enough to use the…
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Ruddy
A flotilla of resting Ruddy Ducks. The bills on the males will turn even bluer before it’s all over.
Backyard and Beyond 