birds
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The Year in Raptors
Suddenly, every local Rock Dove and Starling is in the air. They swirl this way and that, creating visual confusion: which way do your eyes go? Then just as suddenly, the long tail of a Cooper’s Hawk concentrates the eye in the airborne melee. The Accipiter is hunting, surfing over the tops of buildings, jetting…
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Drake Gadwall
Winter means ducks and their allies bobbing and diving offshore. The little blubber-bombs shrug off the cold, cold water. A recent trip to wind-ripped Bush Terminal Park revealed Brant, Mallard, American Black Duck, American Wigeon, Red-breasted Merganser, Bufflehead, Red-throated Loon, and Gadwall in the bays. You need to get a close view of the latter,…
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Whose Woods These Are
I think I know.The winter woodpeckers are out there. Red-bellied Woodpeckers, as above, and Downy Woodpeckers are our regulars. A few Hairy Woodpeckers and Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers keep us honest. And yet… The indispensable Monbiot on not knowing what we’re losing. A must read. Here, if you really want to wallow, are some things I’ve written…
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Raptor Wednesday
Local falcons:American Kestrel. This one was a long avenue block from the Green-Wood linden. The same male, I think, perched atop Sunset Park High School.Another day. Just a few blocks away, atop the tall antenna at 5th/40th. A different male, I think, because of the much greater amount of russet on the breast (not just…
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Raptor Wednesday
In winter, my eyes are always looking for the anomalies in trees. There are plastic bags and balloons, unfortunately, as well as the more welcome clumps of leaves from old squirrel dreys, and sagging Baltimore Oriole nests persisting past their usefulness (at least to birds), and big footballs of paper made by wasps. And then,…
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The One, The Many
In fact, you almost always see Mourning Doves (Zenaida macroura) in pairs, year-around.A herd of Rock Doves (Columba livia), not quite as denim-y as they looked that day.
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Kestrel Wednesday
I walked by the Kestrel perch the next day, on the off-chance he would be there. Nope. But I was on a round-trip errand, so when I returned, there he was. Not the same branch, but the same linden. This time I was on the avenue, meaning rather closer to his height on the tree…
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Belted
The female Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) was tick-purring at Valley Water again recently. This time I got some better photos and got to listen to her for some minutes. (Long-time readers may recognize the hedgehog galls glimpsed on the leaves of this oak, and also that the tree has gotten a bit taller in four…
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Raptor Wednesday
Well, hello there! My first sight of this male American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) was a dark shape in a tree. The winter sun is getting so low on the horizon that even at 1:30 in the afternoon every bird with the sun behind it looks like a Starling.Him falcon was mighty obliging, though, allowing me…
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Raptor Wednesday
Peregrines are pretty regularly spotted above Brooklyn Borough Hall and Columbus and Cadman Plaza parks to its north. There’s a long-time scape (nesting site) nearby in the Pokey, and I heard from a passerby that there has also been one at the federal court house north of the Centrol PO. First I’ve heard of that.…
Backyard and Beyond 