Brooklyn
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Instar Light, Instar Bright
According to the good bug people at Bugguide.net, this is an instar caterpillar of the Grey Hairstreak (Strymon melinus). Here’s the adult, also seen at BBP. The caterpillar was munching away on some Desmodium trifoliatum. There is some variability in the coloring of these caterpillars; this one was pretty much the color of the flowers,…
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Coppicing
Two kinds of woodlands seen along the Dartmoor Way: A conifer plantation, planted mid-last century, looking rather majestic but also, well, rather — although hardly all — sterile. Houndtor Woods, a Woodlands Trust area near Manaton.Trees of many trunks in a hardwood forest, looking deeply lush with its attendant mosses and other understory plants. A…
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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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Variations on Legs
Fiddler crabs in the tiny patch of ever-so-green right now salt marsh at Pier One. On the jumbly rocks next to it, a number of these spiders:I have returned from a two week trip abroad. I have a new computer. I am ready to blog again.A young New World Robin, SO different from the Old…
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Portrait: Gray Catbird
A Study in Gray, except for the russet underneath the tail.
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Treehopper
One of the thorn-like treehoppers, perhaps the Oak Treehopper (Platycotis vittata), since it looks a little like one of those, sans the hornlike crest some of them grow, and was on an oak. These feed on sap. As one of the bugs of the order Hemiptera, they are suckers, not chewers.
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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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Chipmunk
No mean forager and predator, the Eastern Chipmunk (Tamias striatus) will eat just about anything, from acorns and nuts to baby birds, from slugs to insects to carrion. Our local ones are missing out on the bonanza of the 17-year cicadas, which are concentrated in Staten Island. Central Park has seen a rapid rise of…
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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 