Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

birds

  • Kingbird

    An Eastern Kingbird in Green-Wood. Flying insect eaters, Kingbirds will bank and swerve like crazy while attempting to get at bugs making evasive maneuvers. Here’s a big bee who didn’t escape.

    mthew

    , , ,

  • Downy Heron

    One of a trio of young Green Herons (Butorides virescens) on a snag in the Lullwater this week. This one was sitting: I’ve never seen a heron sit before. It was a month ago that I saw this fledgling Green Heron in Green-wood. That bird looked a little older. I wonder if this trio is…

    mthew

    , , ,

  • Shorewalk

    “Creeping along the endless beach amid the sun-squall and the foam, it occurs to us that we, too, are the products of sea-slime.” H.D. Thoreau on Cape Cod. I walked from the Lemon Creek Fishing Pier to Conference House Park along the Raritan Bay shore of Staten Island recently. The red glacial till of the…

    mthew

    , ,

  • Friday’s Feet

    “The angels wanna wear my red shoes,” sings Elvis Costello. Common Terns (Sterna hirundo) don’t often swim, but they can.

    mthew

    ,

  • Killdeer

    A Killdeer blends in nicely with these beach pebbles along the southwest shore of Staten Island.But note this binomial: Charadrius vociferus. I heard three of them long before I ever saw them.

    mthew

    , ,

  • Here Come the Collared-Doves

    Or at least one of them. Eurasian Collared-doves (Streptopelia decaocto) were released in the Bahamas in the 1970s. They soon made their way to Florida and then spread out through North America, except for the Northeast. But it’s only a matter of time. An outlier has been hanging around Chelsea Piers in Manhattan for a…

    mthew

    ,

  • Green Heron Junior

    My eyes were intent on the edges of the pond, alive with damsel- and dragonflies, so I didn’t see this young Green Heron (Butorides virescens) until it darted away on foot. It didn’t go very far, though. I watched it for a long time as it stalked back and forth along the pond. The heavy…

    mthew

    , ,

  • Three More Osprey

    Three young Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) bracketed by their parents at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refugee last week. They are on the verge of flying, and what flights! Soon, if they survive the hurdles of fledging and learning to hunt on their own (catching your first big fish must be something!), they will be venturing south into…

    mthew

    , ,

  • Alarms will sound

    I was struck by the extraordinary amount of bird noise I heard all around me. It’s late in the breeding season, so the territorial and mating songs are mostly done with for the year, but the air was still full of bird calls. Cardinals, Starlings, Mockingbirds, at the least, coming from several trees around me.…

    mthew

    , ,

  • All Gape

    I spotted this nestling, a bird still too young for its eyes to have opened, earlier today. This is probably an American Robin, and would seem to be a second brood for the season. In early spring, birds this young need to worry about being too cold. That wasn’t an issue in today’s tropical, pre-hurricane…

    mthew

    , ,