Brooklyn
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Diospyros virginiana
American Persimmon sex parts brought down during Saturday’s downpour. (I didn’t notice that bumblebee until looking over the photo.)These are the male flowers, rather fleshy bell-shaped things with recurved lobes. And a fruit that’ll never be.
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Odonata Days
Well, I’ve finally seen a damselfly this year. Yesterday, I saw exactly two at the Sylvan Water in Green-Wood. I didn’t have my camera with me, but I did find something to share with you. This is an exuvia, the shed husk of the underwater larval stage of damsel- and dragonflies. This one is a…
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Nests
Green Heron, evidently abandoned. A rather loose collection, looking precarious, like a Mourning Dove’s, but larger and twiggier.Red-winged Blackbird. Lots of grassy-sedgy material in these whirling constructions.Fierce defenders of their breeding areas, RWBBs will go after anything that gets in their space, including much bigger birds like Red-tailed Hawks. As I approached this lake, one…
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Hackberry
A hackberry drupe. Can we call it a “hack”? It is surprisingly smooth at this stage of unripeness, and extremely difficult to photograph. This is through a 10x loupe. Other names for the tree include nettletree, sugarberry, and beaverwood, but why hackberry? One source says the Scottish “hagberry,” for a Eurasian bird cherry (Prunus padus),…
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Nycticorax nycticorax
The cosmopolitan Black-crowned Night Heron.That binomial means “night crow night crow,” named for the squawking sound they make at night, which was supposed to remind someone of a corvid.But they do some good work in the day, too. Although you’ll often finding them like these two, waiting for the darkness.A juvenile.
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150 for 150
An informal group of us are getting together today for a micro-mini bioblitz in Prospect Park. We’re going to see how long it takes us to identify 150 species — including plants, fungi, insects, reptiles & amphibiansbirds, & mammals — in honor of the park’s 150 years of vital importance to the non-human. (Samples for…
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Gracklettes
With their parents noisily thrashing in the leafy underbrush nearby, a trio of young Common Grackles (Quiscalus quiscula) were doing some of their own foraging in the grass. Still being fed, but also learning to do it for themselves. I was curious to see what would happen as a Great Egret approached one of the…
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Raptor Wednesday
The absences must be marked as well as the presences. Last spring, a pair of Osprey nested on this very tall light post above the parking lot at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. Barely a twig remains. To my knowledge, this was the first such nest on the New York Bay edge of Kings County. (You’d have to…
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Blue Monday
Barn Swallow. Hirundo rustica. At Bush Terminal Park. Unusually, there was at least one Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) with the Barns there that day. I see Trees more commonly at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, where it’s the Barn who is rare.The blue here is on the greenish side, as it is wont to be depending…
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Nesting
American Robins (Turdus migratorius) arrive early, or they never go very far, especially in a mild winter. Last week, they were already feeding their young. There’s plenty of time for a second brood this season. Baltimore Orioles (Icterus galbula), on the other wing, are late arrivals. Last week, this one was only then weaving her…
Backyard and Beyond 