birds
-
Brooklyn Update
When my plane descended into LaGuardia last Monday, there were a lot of gray/brown still-wintering trees in evidence. I’d just come from southern-most Texas, where spring was fully in motion, but things are stirring here, too.Question Mark (Polygonia interrogationis) amid the weeping cherries, which were throbbing with honeybees, and an occasional bumble.The nacreous heart of…
-
Owl in the Hole
Twilight. We were in Bentsen State Park, looking for Elf Owls (Micrathene whitneyi). These are our smallest owls, 1.4oz (compare with House Sparrow, .98oz, and Great Horned Owl, 3.1lb). There was a nest in a snag, perhaps originally carved out by a woodpecker. An owl was periodically poking out as the sun set. “Owl in…
-
Rio Grande Valley
A Tricolor Heron (Egretta tricolor) prowling the Laguna Madre off Padre Island. I’ve returned from more than a week in south Texas and I have many pictures to sort though. Stay tuned for news of the 68 new-to-me bird species I saw and other excitements.Great-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus, omnipresent throughout the trip.
-
Turkey
Do you know how many times I’ve kept my eye out for this semi-wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) in Battery Park over the years? She has bee there for some time now — their mini-farm is even roughly turkey-shaped — but this is the first I’ve ever run across her. You’d think, considering the size the…
-
Portrait
A female Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus). An example of one of the most extreme sexual differences found among species in our area.
-
Zygodactylism
That tap-tap-tapping coming from the Phragmites is usually a Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens). Note those long toenail claws. Woodpeckers have zygodactyl toes, two pointing forward, two back. Most birds, the Passerines, or song birds, have three forward, one back.
-
New Nest
Rock Pigeon (Columba livia) nesting under the bridge. The bird was still working on the nest, using her body to shape these freshly collected twigs. The red-eyes are natural, not from a flash.
-
Dive!
Red-breasted Merganser (Mergus serrator) taking to the water.
-
Green-Wood is Red-Head Country
The Red-headed Woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) who came to stay? An unusual species for Brooklyn, this bird over-wintered in Green-Wood, and quite locally, too: this is the same tree — snags are perfect habitat for them — I photographed it in back in January. You can see how the red feathers of the head have really…
-
Water Street Peregrines
For the last couple of months, I’ve periodically seen a single Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) hanging around the scrape at 55 Water Street. This is an established nesting site, complete with nest cams (but the website hasn’t been updated since 2011). Most of the time I’ve looking (optically enhanced, you can bet) from the other…
Backyard and Beyond 