birds
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Ravens!
The Common Raven (Corvus corax) family of Brooklyn numbers four. The first I heard of them was near the end of May, when the City Birder spotted them in Green-Wood Cemetery. I first saw them on June 9th. It was 6:15 a.m. and they were turning a floppy right over the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal…
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Nests
Green Heron, evidently abandoned. A rather loose collection, looking precarious, like a Mourning Dove’s, but larger and twiggier.Red-winged Blackbird. Lots of grassy-sedgy material in these whirling constructions.Fierce defenders of their breeding areas, RWBBs will go after anything that gets in their space, including much bigger birds like Red-tailed Hawks. As I approached this lake, one…
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Nycticorax nycticorax
The cosmopolitan Black-crowned Night Heron.That binomial means “night crow night crow,” named for the squawking sound they make at night, which was supposed to remind someone of a corvid.But they do some good work in the day, too. Although you’ll often finding them like these two, waiting for the darkness.A juvenile.
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Gracklettes
With their parents noisily thrashing in the leafy underbrush nearby, a trio of young Common Grackles (Quiscalus quiscula) were doing some of their own foraging in the grass. Still being fed, but also learning to do it for themselves. I was curious to see what would happen as a Great Egret approached one of the…
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How Now, Brown Thrasher?
All three of our regional Mimidae can be found here in New York City. Northern Mockingbirds are year-around regulars, even on the streets and in backyards. The Catbirds swoosh into the parks to breed in spring and their meowing calls and other songs are a major part of the aural landscape of the woods until…
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Raptor Wednesday
The absences must be marked as well as the presences. Last spring, a pair of Osprey nested on this very tall light post above the parking lot at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. Barely a twig remains. To my knowledge, this was the first such nest on the New York Bay edge of Kings County. (You’d have to…
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Blue Monday
Barn Swallow. Hirundo rustica. At Bush Terminal Park. Unusually, there was at least one Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) with the Barns there that day. I see Trees more commonly at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, where it’s the Barn who is rare.The blue here is on the greenish side, as it is wont to be depending…
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Nesting
American Robins (Turdus migratorius) arrive early, or they never go very far, especially in a mild winter. Last week, they were already feeding their young. There’s plenty of time for a second brood this season. Baltimore Orioles (Icterus galbula), on the other wing, are late arrivals. Last week, this one was only then weaving her…
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Raptor Wednesday
I’m going to bet this isn’t the only American Kestrel nest above a New York City bus stop. Falco sparverius love these old decaying wooden cornices, one of the reasons they have taken so well to the city. Falcons are spartan: the nest is pretty sparse inside, evidently, with little or no nesting material used.…
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Wood Thrush
If the rich fluty yodeling of a Wood Thrush (Hylocichla mustelina) hadn’t alerted me, I probably wouldn’t have noticed their nest.You can just see the top of the bird’s head here, rusty orange, with white eye-ring.And the heavy spotting on the breast. Tis the season. Clutch size for this species is 3-4. The eggs are…
Backyard and Beyond 