birds
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Raptor Wednesday
Walking home, the low November sun in my eyes, I was not at first sure that the shape on the corner of my apartment building was. I briefly wondered if there was an architectural flourish I’d never noticed. The silhouette quickly resolved itself. A Red-tailed Hawk. With prey. And screeching at the other Red-tailed that…
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Gallish
Went on a walk last weekend in Central Park in honor of Alexander Von Humboldt and the late mycologist Gary Lincoff. We met at the Explorer’s Gate, next to the Humboldt bust. The baby vomit stench of ginkgo fruits, rotting and crushed on the sidewalk, deterred us not. The venerable American elm behind Alex reaches…
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Raptor Wednesday
A parade of Falco species! Last Thursday afternoon and then again Monday morning, a Peregrine (F. peregrinus) was atop St. Michael’s eating what looked like pigeon. (This butcher’s block, the highest perch for blocks, is two avenue blocks and one street block away from our apartment, approximately 500 meters/1640 feet, so these through-the-scope views leave…
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American Woodcock Fallout
It must have rained timberdoodles Friday night, because Saturday morning I came across 25 of them in Green-Wood. This shattered my record. Another three were probably repeats, flushed from here to there. A cold front fall of American Woodcock. (Besides fall of woodcock, plump, cord, and rush are recored as collective nouns for them; I…
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Raptor Wednesday
A yew: evergreen, dense, low to the ground. Accipiters in Green-Wood love these trees the year-around. A bird I could not identify was making a very odd noise at the top of one of these yews recently. This is often a sign of warning or distress. I saw a squirrel shock-still under the neighboring tree,…
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It’s That Time of Year Again
Generally, American Woodcock see you before you see them. And then they bolt. They are so well-blended in with the leaf litter that their noisy take-offs, sometimes from quite close by, are very startling. Flushed four on Saturday, three on Sunday. Two of Sunday’s, pictured here, took shelter under beechwood, all crowded with shadow, leaves,…
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Recent Birds
Palm Warblers are most commonly on the ground, but this one has snagged something insect-y on a tree limb. Kinglets to the right of me, kinglets to the left. The Ruby-crowned rarely shows his flaring ruby crown, but I guess he was put out by the other RCKs here. No “confusing fall warbler” garb for…
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Raptor Wednesday
Keep watching the skies! Two Sundays ago was overcast and ready for rain. A distant passing bird, which I thought would be a gull, turned out to be a Bald Eagle heading SSW. This was, mind you, after spotting: A Cooper’s Hawk. A Merlin. And a Sharp-shinned Hawk. This one was in the Merlin Bowl…
Backyard and Beyond 