Bronx
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Lichens
This is the first printed image of a lichen. 1542: Leonhart Fuchs’s De historia stirpium commentarii insignes… (and the title keeps going, as they were wont to). This copy is from the special collections department at the LuEster T. Mertz Library at the NYBG. This book and several others were on display during a recent…
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Lichen
Lichens, like other lifeforms, are sensitive to air pollution. So the relative scrubbing of the air in the last few generations — before the Republican counter-revolution — has brought back lichen communities to NYC. Cemeteries are the one of best places to see lichens because they don’t have the road traffic of the streets and…
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Darning (?)
Common Green Darner dragonflies (Anax junius). This is a migratory species, one of the first seen in the spring and one of the last seen in the fall as they move up and down North America. Male is grasping the female as she oviposits, laying her eggs in the lake in Woodlawn Cemetery. Not all…
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Raptor Wednesday
The #BrooklynKestrels female having a sip of roof water.They will bathe in such puddles as well. These were taken April 20th. May 2nd found them both in a London plane one block from the nest site. Spotted the female yesterday. A Common Grackle was buzzing her.Now that the trees have come out, it’s harder to…
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Mammal Monday
If it’s quiet enough, not generally a condition found within the bounds of NYC, a squirrel gnawing on a walnut will ring throughout the area.The eating of buds, on the other paw, is much more subtle. You may only notice when things start falling on your head.
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Mammal Monday
Usually raccoons sleep off the night’s revels in a conifer, as here in Green-Wood, but when in Rome….Someplace, for instance, where the evergreens are in short supply, as in this section of Pelham Bay. A sharper eye than mine pointed out that this hammock is fundamentally made up of poison ivy vine. In the news:…
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Oh, Schist!
The eastern edge of Twin Island, facing Long Island Sound just north of Orchard Beach in the Bronx, is an outcropping of the Hartland Formation schist.And does it ever outcrop!Quoting the geological argot of the USGS “The rock consists of granitic and garnetiferous amphibolite gneiss with numerous quartz veins and migmatite dikes. Migmatite is an…
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Raptor Wednesday
A Red-tail miscellany.On this day, there were three at the same time; a pair of perched adults and an airborne yearling.Here’s a pair on an overcast day. Note that fist.When the light is right, and the bird is over a year old, then there’s no mistaking a Red-tailed Hawk on the east coast even at…
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While we’re on the subject of small birds
This Golden-crowned Kinglet, spotted just over a month ago in the Bronx, seems to have escaped notice in the photo file until now. So, have at it! And this. Same day, same place. I think it’s a “wild” House Sparrow nest, but will certainly entertain alternative theories. When they do nest out in the open,…
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Raptor Us
As I turned the corner onto 41st Street across from the park, preparing for the hike up the moraine, I noticed a big bird take off from the slope above the park’s retaining wall. It was a Red-tailed Hawk, of course, and it landed in a London plane tree anchored in the sidewalk. Crossing the…
Backyard and Beyond 