Brooklyn
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Calm
Pier One about an hour before high tide. I was somewhat amused to hear someone on the radio say that “high tide would come again.” Yes, it will, roughly every twelve hours, until the moon drifts further away. Meanwhile, the salt marsh perseveres. Squally out there. Very little damage in my neighborhood; largest trees fine,…
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High Tide
This was high tide at Brooklyn Bridge Park this morning around 9. This is a 3-foot surge; it is forecast to be nearly double that at the next high tide (9:17 p.m at Brooklyn Bridge). But don’t forget the wind, pushing it even further. The saltmarsh in the right corner is underwater. Salt marshes are…
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Barnacle Goose, Prospect Lake
A Barnacle Goose (Branta leucopsis) hanging out with some Canada Greese (Branta canadensis) on the Lake in Prospect Park. A most uncommon sight in the northeast, since this bird is native to Greenland and Northern Europe. First one I’ve ever seen. Probably the first one ever seen in Prospect. If you go looking for it,…
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Dead Horse Bay
Yellow-rumped warblers and Green Darner dragonflies before we got to the landfill edge.One of two Royal Terns, Thalasseus maximus, both with bands on their left legs. Not a commonly sighted bird in the city; I didn’t know what they were at first. The smaller Common and Little Terns we see here during summer have already…
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BBP Eye Candy
Take away a little green pigmentation and what do you get? You can open these up to fill your Monday morning computer screen by clicking on them, because you probably need a little boost to the start of your week. The last image would make a particularly good mini trifold screen, and since you’re using…
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Mammal
Awwwww…. Some three feet off the ground, in the thick of the plants. We think it’s a young brown rat, Rattus norvegicus, whiskers atwitter.
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Furman Cattails
The Furman Street rooftop cattail mini-garden is still going strong. Diagonal roof line necessitated by your blogger not wanting to venture too far out into Furman Street’s under-the-BQE dragstrip raceway.
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Pine Siskins
Pine siskins, Spinus pinus, have been passing through town this past couple of weeks. These were in Brooklyn Bridge Park yesterday. This was forecast to be a big year for these typically boreal birds, pushed down to our latitudes by weather and other conditions in Canada, and it has been. A small, streaky bird with…
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Interior Katydid
As if to reinforce the point to this blog — that inexhaustible nature is everywhere — what should I find on the inside of my building’s front door this morning? A katydid, with only five legs. I haven’t heard any katydids on the street in a while, but I have run across them before in…
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Trick
Those fake cobwebs some people insist on garbaging their homes with this time of year turn out to be as effective as real cobwebs in trapping dust, bits of leaves, and, as I noticed on Congress St. the other day, a dozen wasps.Vespula maculifrons, the Eastern Yellowjacket. Black antennae, remember, are good for IDing the…
Backyard and Beyond 