Brooklyn
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Cicadas. Part III.
Found on the Cobble Hill sidewalk: the forewing of a dog day cicada. (Earlier posts about cicadas are here and here.) The size (1.5″ across) and green color identify it. You will, I believe, be pleased if you click on the image to open it up to see it larger. Cicadas, like most bugs, have…
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On the F train last night: Kid: “Mommy, the sun is red!” Mom: “Yes, honey, it’s setting.” Kid “Is it tired?” Roasted and toasted, more likely. Tonight, in the sky, look for the Perseid meteor shower. And listen for the katydids. In case you missed this, my first posting on HuffPo is about the history…
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Community garden chick
On Saturday, we walked down to Red Hook, passing several community gardens on Columbia St. In one, we heard an incessant call in a tree. At first, we thought it was the female cardinal we were looking at, but she was just responding to this vocal youngster, clasping a branch right beneath the nest. This…
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In Green-Wood
Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery is a remarkable place year ’round, but this is the richest season for its natural history. The blush of a crab apple. An Alien-like cicada exuvia. Green frog in the Valley Water. Feral honey bee hive. Cautious frog. I’m not sure of the species. The Valley Water has green frogs (big), bull…
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Cicadas. Part II.
The cicada killer wasp, Sphecius speciosus, which can get up to two inches in length. Yikes! It’s one of the largest wasps in North America, but if you aren’t a cicada you shouldn’t worry much. As you can see, it’s a gentle vegetarian: this one was collecting nectar out at the Saltmarsh Nature Center in…
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Cicadas. Part I.
For me, the sound of summer — hot, humid, stinking summer, the doggiest of Dog Days — is the rising and falling whine of cicadas up in trees. I first became acquainted with cicadas in the Midwest, where hot and humid go together like deep fat frying batter and food on a stick at a…
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Jimsonweed
Know your poisons. This is Jimsonweed, Datura stramonium, also known as devil’s trumpet (from the flowers), thorn apple (from the fruit) and several other names. It’s a member of the nightshade family that happens, unlike its cousins the tomato and the eggplant, to be poisonous, deadly throughout, from root to seed. Cattle and sheep have…
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Wren Revisions
One of my favorite scientific names has long been that of the winter wren: Troglodytes troglodytes. “Troglodyte” means cave-dweller. When the binomial system uses the same word for genus and species, it’s considered the purest manifestation of the genus; all other species within the genus are compared to it. It’s the wren’s wren, so to…
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Local hymenoptera
The sunflowers at Maize Field, at Bergen & Smith St., are swarming with pollinators these days. Nice comparison between a honey bee, on the left, and a wasp, on the right.
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Shy spiders
In the excitement over our recent trip to Iceland, I have been neglecting home in the fairest of all boroughs. So here’s a little taste of Brooklyn to remind you where I spend most of my time. Yeah. Spiders in my back yard, the Back 40 (inches), are a constant. Jumping spiders, crab spiders, orb-web…
Backyard and Beyond 