birds
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Great Blue & the Democracy of the Heart
Lo and behold, on a recent day I scanned the little islet in the midst of the Sylvan Water and found this Great Blue Heron. Had the bird stuck around all winter? (We’ve have very few days with frozen water). I did see a GBH sail across the Sunset Park plain back in January, heading…
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Books of a Feather
I grew up with Roger Tory Peterson’s field guide in the house. I was not a bird watcher then (“birder” with its exciting, action-orientated flavor, had not yet taken over the lingo). My mother was. I didn’t get it. I could definitely identify a Northern Cardinal. When I started to watch birds I decided to…
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Of a feather
Have you been keeping up with the our ever-expanding knowledge of bird evolution? The linked summary is a good place to catch up on these fascinating discoveries and hypotheses. The findings have been, uh… flying off the fossil beds in recent years and they have turned over old certainties. The barred pattern on the feather…
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Raptor Wednesday
A Bald Eagle at Croton Point. In February, I had 61 raptor sightings (!), a count which includes a total of 18 sightings during two trips up to Croton Point. More about non-violent protest. The take away: demonstrations are good, need to continue, and get bigger. Here’s a list of actions in NYC. Here’s the…
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Raptor Wednesday
See me?Well, I don’t want to be seen. Speaking of being seen! There are lots of elections this year, and although the Republican anti-democracy campaign plows full speed ahead, their nasty little oligopoly isn’t here yet.
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Common Goldeneye
You can almost see the golden eye from here. You can certainly see the white spot on the cheek of this male Bucephala clangula. I don’t see these often: they do not favor the harbor. There were a few dozen off Hunter Island in the Bronx, the western end of Long Island Sound, and the…
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Swamp
What an unfortunate metaphor “draining the swamp” is. We need all the swamp we can get. Here’s a Swamp Sparrow (Melospiza georgiana). This species has longer legs than its cousins (the Song Sparrow is in the same genus), the better for wading. But this particular bird was tucked away in a bit of rather dry…
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Raptor Wednesday
A winter trip to Croton Point Park up in Westchester Co. has become a regular thing for Backyard & Beyond. Last week I took a group from Brooklyn Brainery up to see the Bald Eagles. It was the annual Teatown Hudson River EagleFest: there were volunteers with scopes stationed at the boat landing south of the…
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Raptor Wednesday
It is not easy being a large hawk. They’re slow, obvious, and nobody likes them. A case in point: this young Red-tail (Buteo jamaicensis) was being hassled by several Blue Jays, who screamed and shouted in alarm. They were pressing the advantages of the many smaller against the larger one. Even a bold Black-capped Chickadee…
Backyard and Beyond 