Brooklyn
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Nuts! Kentucky Coffeetree
The Kentucky Coffeetree, Gymnocladus diocius, produces a pod that usually gets three times as big as this and stays on the tree through the winter. This developing one was probably downed by the wind.A larger one wrenched opened by a mammal (me, duh!). The thumbnail-sized seeds within were sometimes used, after roasting, as a coffee…
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Spotted Mystery
A storm-toppled tree in the Ravine in Prospect Park made a natural bridge for squirrels and chipmunks before it was sliced up. The horizontal trunk was also being used for a plucking station, as these remains attest. The main predators of birds in the park include other birds, raccoons (but mostly of nestlings), and cats.…
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Nuts! Hazel
Exotic and glorious, the Turkish hazel, Corylus corlurna. I’ve seen them in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, but this one I found in Green-Wood. Sibley notes that this species is used as rootstock for commercial hazelnut production. (I love hazelnuts, particularly when drowned in chocolate.)
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Culex
“Nymph, in thy (whining) orisons be all my sins remembered.” It was a tough night on the skeeter front. Approximately eight bites amongst the two of us, and so far three mosquitoes, including this early afternoon kill. Hard to tell here, but the eyes have a blue-green iridescence to them. Possibly the southern house mosquito,…
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Cyclops
Do you know how hard it is to get a photo of a Common Green Darner? Anax junius. Well, for one thing, they are not one of the perching dragonflies, but every once and a while they do have to take a break. At about three inches long, these are one of the largest species…
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Aedes albopitcus
Though locked in ceaseless struggle with these dipterous beasts — mid-air slapdown palm smear wins this round, but I couldn’t take pic with my left hand — vectors of dengue fever, dog heartworm, eastern equine encephalitis, West Nile virus, and infuriating itchiness (finger and toe joints the worst!), I can’t help but admire them for…
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Hedge Apple
The fruits of the Osage Orange are falling. They are sap-sticky and alien-brainy when fresh.
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WTF?
Is it the curse of Backyard and Beyond? Today I walked by the site of the Chinese persimmon I photographed Tuesday and blogged about yesterday. It was gone. Uprooted, like the Billionaire Mayor wants to do to the Occupy Wall Street movement. There was a hole in the soil in the large wooden planter, a…
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Bergen Persimmon
Seen yesterday on Bergen Street, a persimmon. Diospyros kaki. A common name reported by Sibley is “tomato tree” and this un-ripened fruit shows why. The Chinese or Japanese persimmon is obviously native to those parts of the world and is the source of commercial persimmons, a delicacy, I’m told (they don’t travel well). Now, there…
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Hairy Larva
As much as we love the great outdoors here at Backyard and Beyond, we don’t neglect the mysteries of the interior. Wildness is also here, inside, with us and amongst us.A tiny larval something or other in the bathroom, using the edge of the tiled wall as its path. I could not help but think…
Backyard and Beyond 