Brooklyn
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Wood Duck
A female Wood Duck (Aix sponsa) through several layers of wild. There were at least seven on the Pools recently. Two of the males. All the males were out of their harlequin breeding feathers, in eclipse plumage, and looked like abashed clowns who had trashed an orphanage after wiping off the greasepaint. It looks like…
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Two of Our Smallest Butterflies
Eastern Tailed-Blue (Cupido comyntas). Nice to see the pale blue here, for it usually perches like this:This is a male. Females are browner. I must say, my field guide suggests a much darker blue, but the harsh sunlight here is bleaching everything out. The tiny trailing “tails” can be seen emerging just below the lower…
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Color of Light
Same Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus), same camera/settings, different light.
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Legion of Raccoons
Late afternoon in Green-Wood, a crusty old bandit walking like a old cat. Elsewhere: one of two young and a mother who were just crossing the street then they saw us. They climbed back up the tree they’d come down.The youngsters seemed very curious.
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Maryland Monument Dasher
Two hundred and forty years ago today, the British and their Hessian swine-mercenaries walloped the still-loose conglomeration that was the Continental Army in Brooklyn. There’s a memorial in Prospect Park to the Maryland 400, troops who held the Old Stone House (the existing structure in J. J. Byrne Park is a recreation) down in the…
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Red-Tailed Hawk Stalking
A young Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) patrolling the 5th Avenue entrance of Green-Wood. I would hazard to guess that it is wondering where that Eastern Grey Squirrel went.
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Vane
This large wind vane on a building on Hanson Place and South Elliot is one of the delights of downtown Brooklyn. It is a sight rapidly being overshadowed by the generic glass towers rising rising around the neighborhood, which make the borough look like Anywheresville. Three things: 1. This actually does move, which, for a…
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Trio of Dragonflies
12-spotted Skimmer (Libellula pulchella) male. Common Whitetail (Plathemis lydia) male. Eastern Pondhawk (Erythemis simplicicollis) male. What’s up with all the males? They’re patrolling territory, in this case the ponds of Green-Wood, while females generally only show up to these sites when they want to mate. Otherwise the females are over the fields and meadows, at…
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Brooklyn Long-horns
This black bee was a real brawler, tackling each flower like a linebacker, rolling up and over the flower parts until it was upside-down. Note the long opera-glove-like sleeves of pollen on the hind legs. These legs have more hair than the other two sets, and these pollen packs are rather larger than you see…
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Tiger Bee Fly
Xenox tiginus is a large fly with a distinctive black and clear wing patterning. At least in our eastern region, where there is just one of these Xenox genus flies; there are a few more out west. These lay their eggs at the entrances of Carpenter Bee nests so that their larvae can parasitize the bee’s larvae.…
Backyard and Beyond 