Brooklyn
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Raptor Wednesday
Hello, American Kestrels! Two female nestlings just a-bursting to check out the world, B63 bus, double-parked trucks, crazed drivers, and all! The parents, just around the corner. Interestingly, neither they nor the young could see each other directly.Mamma (presumably).A NYC classic: a rotted out wooden cornice. These small falcons are rather unusual: no other diurnal…
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Insects Update
A couple of American Snouts. Um, yes, that’s their rather descriptive common name. Libytheana carinenta is a lot more common south and west — I’ve seen them before in Texas. Their larval food plant is hackberry. There were three mature hackberries above this understory. What an illustration of the relationship between plant and animal! I…
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Recent Birds
All the evidence pointed to nesting American Oystercatchers in here. Keep your dogs on leash!Brand new Starlings have been everywhere.A fledged Chipping Sparrow. Hardly looks it, but could fly.Quiet while the parent was foraging nearby, but loud when the parent was near.Here’s another, some days later.And another…Common Grackle fledgling. Yellow Warbler: one of the few…
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Three Common Brooklyn Damselflies
In my experience, these are the three most common Brooklyn damselflies. Eastern Forktail male. Beware that Rambur’s Forktail and Furtive Forktail males also have variations on this green thorax/blue end segments coloring. Fragile Forktail male. The broken green lines on the thorax, upside down exclamation points in this case, are unique. Not sure where this…
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Sunset Park Chimneys
Chimney Swifts may be heard more than seen. Especially from the sidewalk, with its narrow view of the sky. But that chittering call of their’s is here, there, everywhere.They’re quite a challenge to photograph. Even more difficult is catching one entering or departing the chimney they are roosting/nesting in. Here’s the second Swift-active chimney within…
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Raptor Wednesday
The male of the local pair. One hell of an efficient bird-killer. These pictures were taken through the window at some distance, but you get the idea. This is the female kestrel going after a Red-tailed Hawk who made the mistake of cruising through the neighborhood. She chased the big buteo high above the park.…
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Cottonwood Air
There was so much Eastern Cotton fluff, it was easy to scoop up a handful off the ground. A single mature Populus deltoides can produce an estimated 40 million seeds in a season. The seed is inside the dried fruit or achene attached to cotton-like filaments that help transport it through the air.Here’s my attempt…
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Brilliant Disguise
This hairy, burly flier certainly suggests a bumble bee head-butting her way into the nectar and pollen.But, taking it from the top, the characteristic eyes of a fly let us know that this is a bee-mimicking fly. In addition, the two wings literally point to Diptera, the order of flies, named after their two wings.…
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BCNH
Black-crowned Night-heron stalking the shallows at low tide.A slow, patient hunter, but given to snapping the neck rather suddenly, making that breeding plume corkscrew. Is this to throw water droplets off the bill?What’s for lunch? This bird is another all-purpose devourer. In this case — three separate cases while I watched — it was worms…
Backyard and Beyond 