Brooklyn
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Dawn Corvids
One morning recently, a great parliament of crows flew over the apartment heading towards the bay. I estimated fifty at least. They boiled around the air column over the empty parking lot of the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, before turning right to head northish along the coast of Brooklyn. They must have been roosting inland.…
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Ravens
I usually hear them before I see them. Brooklyn’s Common Ravens regularly fly across the bow, the view from here down to the coast of Upper New York Bay. They are generally quite vocal, which helps to distinguish them from the crows from afar. In this case, the somewhat swine-like krongking was right overhead. The bird…
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Superb Owl Sunday Extra Point
Blue Jay points the way. Or, more accurately, calls “jay! jay! jay!” to the way.I heard the Jays from afar. Couldn’t see anything in the tree, so I walked underneath it to look for owl sign (whitewash or pellets) or feathers from a raptor kill. Nothing but cones and raccoon poop. Well, Jays do yell…
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The Flow
The initial sign. Seven days later. About right on time (see last year).
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Raptor Wednesday
Last week, we espied a Cooper Hawk with prey inside a yew. This week, we’re inside an arbor vitae. These hawks do like their cover.This could be the very same mature bird. This time, lunch was one of those white “doves” which are actually homing pigeons.This was the plucking site, under some nearby yews. Jays…
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Winterized
Look up, look down, look all around. This surely must be the mantra of the naturalist. I was looking at an American Kestrel way in a big willow oak; it had been flying from tree to tree and antenna, too, on the border of Green-Wood. But now the lighting and distance were not conducive to…
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Mammal Monday
Usually raccoons sleep off the night’s revels in a conifer, as here in Green-Wood, but when in Rome….Someplace, for instance, where the evergreens are in short supply, as in this section of Pelham Bay. A sharper eye than mine pointed out that this hammock is fundamentally made up of poison ivy vine. In the news:…
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Raptor Wednesday
This linden tree sported a male American Kestrel in 2017 and 2018, too. Now here’s… another? He’s facing the low winter sun. That makes for good photographs, but also gives his potential prey a good view of him.You’d think he’d want to come out of the sun, but that might throw his shadow ahead of…
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Nestled Nests
It’s the time of year to spot the paper nests of Bald-faced Hornets. They usually build their nests in trees. Winter weather often destroys them and/or brings them down to the ground, like this one. But this one looks to be in excellent shape. However, it won’t be reused; the colony is gone, having only…
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Raptor Wednesday
A Red-tail miscellany.On this day, there were three at the same time; a pair of perched adults and an airborne yearling.Here’s a pair on an overcast day. Note that fist.When the light is right, and the bird is over a year old, then there’s no mistaking a Red-tailed Hawk on the east coast even at…
Backyard and Beyond 