Brooklyn
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Scale
In my experience, the internet shrinks the world, whittling our sense of scale. Everything is on a screen now, and so many of us have very small screens indeed in our hands. I’m curious to see where this leads us. I know that when I look at thumbnails on screen, I often don’t have any…
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Raccoon
Road kill, Flatbush Avenue and Floyd Bennett Field. This raccoon’s jaw shows you the teeth that lets this omnivore eat practically anything, from your garbage to turtle eggs. In our region, cars are the animal’s only “predator.”
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Prospect Park
It’s warm enough for turtles to be basking on the Lake, Lullwater, and Pools. Not many, but a smattering were to be seen soaking in the sun along the water course.On a birch, this cocoon is more seasonally appropriate, weathering the not very weathery winter. While I’ve been seeing flies all month already, this was…
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Pink, Yellow
Another flowering quince in the ‘hood. This one is on the north-facing side of the street, so it doesn’t get nearly as much sun as this south-facing one I photographed at the beginning of the month. And the crocuses are popping up. This patch was on Union Street.
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I Like Lichens
It being such a mizzling day, I needed some color. Luckily, this kind of weather brings out the vibrancy of the lichens on our street trees.Air pollution is generally bad news for lichens, as is ozone depletion. Walking through City Hall Park in Manhattan just before I took these shots on Union Street in Brooklyn,…
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Sweetgum Fruit
The spiky, dried fruits of the Sweetgum tree, Liquidamber styraciflua, often persist on the tree through winter. A strong wind can bring them down to the sidewalk, where the jagged orbs look otherworldly. Each fruit is composed of 40-60 capsules, which are now long since emptied of their seeds. A native tree, and a regular…
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A Raft of Ducks
In Dead Horse Bay, thousands of Great Scaup, Aythya marila, are rafting together.
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Coot
The American Coot, dwarfed by a juvenile Mute Swan in both perspective and actuality, is a Prospect Park regular, but never in very large numbers. There were several on the Lake last week, and a surprising dozen plus at the Boat House. Although duck-like, Coots (Fulica americana) are actually Gruiformes, or rails (I saw their…
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Feeders
Approaching the bird feeders in Prospect Park, I heard several Blue Jays screeching. The feeders themselves were completely abandoned, which is a sure sign of something going on, although there were Downy Woodpeckers, House Finches, Red-winged Blackbirds, and Mourning Doves all around in the trees. The male Red-wings are generally one of the earliest birds…
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Red Hook Saunter
Red Hook is the name of the eastern-most town in St. Thomas, USVI, but I’m back home in Brooklyn now, where Red Hook is a neighborhood.Long a working-class dock-side neighborhood, it’s relatively tree-less compared to Brownstone Brooklyn. The City’s Million Trees program is trying to change that (although who cares for the trees once planted…
Backyard and Beyond 