Brooklyn

This large yew in Green-Wood was overflowing with seeds, above and below.There was no evidence of anybody eating them, however.On the other side of the cemetery, meanwhile, a Red-breasted Nuthatch has been eating from a cluster of two other yews the last three times I passed by. Or so I assume it’s the same bird.…

There have been a lot of White-breasted Nuthatches in Green-Wood this winter.Since they’re so vocal, I’ve heard them throughout my forays there.And when more than one of these things starts calling — three in a single tree, say — they make an astonishing radio-interferrance mess of noise.Yes, the White-breasted is a bit red in the…

We interrupt our week of small birds with an eater of small birds: a Merlin. In this case, though, this small falcon was being harried by Blue Jays.Which meant lots of noise, almost all of it from the screeching jays.

Very determined is this bird. The typical procedure is to score a seed from some thick evergreen, fly it to a nearby deciduous tree with ample branches and gnarly bark, and attack!Then repeat.But you know what else is important?Water.Happy New Year.

If you look closely and follow a line extending from the sharp bill of this Red-breasted Nuthatch, you’ll see a dark round seed, just a tad larger than the bird’s eye, hatched into a crevice of bark.Whack goes the chisel-bill!

Back to this… birch?This time — and it was the same time as yesterday’s Tufted Titmouse, give or take a minute — a White-breasted Nuthatch is partaking of the sapsucker holes.In Green-Wood Cemetery at this time of year, you can go a good distance without seeing any birds. But when you come across them, the…