birds
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Amidst The Eagles
Would you believe me if I said there were so many Bald Eagles 50 minutes north of NYC by train that I simply lost count of the plethora of winged giants in the winter landscape? Luckily, somebody was keeping score: one member of our Brooklyn Brainery party tallied two dozen eagle sightings during our excursion…
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Raptor Wednesday
This tangle of a pair of trees by the Terrace Bridge in Prospect Park, complete with what looks like a fairly-secure snapped-off Y-shaped limb, is a fine raptor hang-out. I’ve seen a Red-tailed Hawk, Merlin, and now a Cooper’s Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) up here in recent weeks, each separately. Yes, the Coop is in this…
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A Month of Raptors
I didn’t begin the month thinking I would end up paying rigorous attention to the raptors I’d see, but the New Year’s Day appearance of a Peregrine Falcon zooming down 39th Street became, in retrospect, auspicious. Below are the month’s raptor sightings, meaning individual birds may have been counted more than once, for instance the…
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Raptor Wednesday
St. Agnes towers over the northern end the Gowanus. There must be a grand view from up there. This is a Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) ~ but you knew that.
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White-headed Sea Eagle
Yesterday in Green-Wood I was enjoying the sun in a section of the cemetery I’d never been in before when a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) flew overhead. Whoa! The bird was a mature adult; it takes about four years for those white feathers to come in completely on the head and tail. The look is…
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Yellow-bellied
The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) is one of the rarer woodpeckers in our city woods. It was harder to see by eye than it looks here in the camera, the feather pattern blending nicely into the bark and the shadow.So let’s get closer… and the first thing that I see is that face! Is this…
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Nest Door To The Owl
Not fifteen feet from the Barred Owl, buried in some Yews, was one of Mr. Cooper’s Hawks (Accipiter cooperii). The hawk was closer to me — I was closer to it than it was to the owl — so it looked substantially larger than the owl, but the owl is a larger bird. Was the…
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Duck Out of Water
I don’t remember the last time I saw a Canvasback (Aythya valisineria). Whenever it was, the bird was in the water. This bright male surprised me on the rocks of Pier 4 at Brooklyn Bridge Park this afternoon. From a distance, with a few Gadwall around him in the water and on the rocks, I…
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Strix varia
A hot tip from someone who wishes to remain anonymous clued me into this Barred Owl (Strix varia) located… somewhere in NYC.I had to agree to be blindfolded before being led to the site; it was either that or ride bundled into the trunk. This close-up shows what looks like a small delicate bill, but…
Backyard and Beyond 