birds
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British Birds 2
A cornucopia of corvids!Magpie (Pica pica), seen throughout my walk, usually flying away from a field. This one was in London, and was the first bird I photographed on this trip. There was even one in the backyard of my hotel in London, on Norfolk Square, heard more often than seen. A magnificent animal, absurdly…
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British Birds 1
Male Tufted Duck (Aythya fuligula) at the London Wetland Centre.A very fresh Moorhen chick (Gallinula chloropus) in the garden of the Natural History Museum. Chick and a juvenile. The kids grow up fast.Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major) outside my window in Buckfastleigh.Wood pigeon (Columba palumbus) nesting at the Totnes railroad station.Male Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) at…
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PSA: Know Your Starlings
And your Grackles. This is currently on exhibit at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Photo Wall. These not-grackles are in fact European Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). Mortimer! For Common Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula), see here. For Boat-tailed Grackle (Q.major), hang out at Jamaica Bay and you might get lucky. For Great-tailed Grackle (Q. mexicanus), try the Southwest US and…
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London Wetland Centre
Polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott wrote to his wife about their only child — who he of course did not get to see grow up — “make the boy interested in natural history if you can; it is better than games.” This is a statue of that child grown up, Peter Markham Scott (1909-1989), naturalist,…
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Portrait: Gray Catbird
A Study in Gray, except for the russet underneath the tail.
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Tits and So Forth
According to my iBirds UK app, this is a representation of a Great Tit (Parus major), which is not to be confused with the Bearded Tit, Long Tailed Tit, Blue Tit, Coal Tit, Crested Tit, Marsh Tit, or Willow Tit. Good gravy, that’s a lot of Tits. I found this on top of a gravestone…
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Juneberry
The Juneberries (Amelanchier sp.) are nearly ripe, and that means the birds are starting to devour them.A Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum). Unexpected. Later I found four in a tree on the mezzanine that is Squib Park. Here’s one of these crested beauties:
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Hummingbird Nest
Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) nest throughout eastern North America, but in both the first (1988) and second (2008) Atlas of Breeding Birds in New York State, none were found to be breeding in NYC. (As the City Birder, who found this nest, notes: it’s certainly possible that previous nesting was just missed because of the…
Backyard and Beyond 