Brooklyn
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Parasites
Well, if I don’t recognize it, how will the other birds? Spotted in Marine Park’s wild west side a week ago: the identity of this bird baffled me for while. And then it hit me. Young Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater). This bird was raised by another species, for Brown-headed Cowbirds are brood parasites: they lay…
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Orange Bluet
Most of the bluet damselflies are, you guessed it, blue, but this one bucks the trend. Sort of: this is a mature male, but when he was younger, he had blue markings instead of these orange ones. Enallagma signatum.
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Butterfly Showcase
Starting to see a few Monarchs (Danaus plexippus) out and about. And the Black Swallowtails (Papilio polyxenes) are also active now. Male above, female below, I think. Eastern Tiger Swallowtail(Papilio glaucus) female. A very conspicuous butterfly, both for her size (4-4.5″ wingspan) and her bold tiger-like patterning. Males lack the deep blue. But wait! Delaying…
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Monks Eat With Their Hands
Monk Parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus) munching on fresh Hemlock cones.Here, if you’re doing eye-flips over wild parrots in Brooklyn, is more information about these Andean-origin birds.Usually fairly skittish, these raucous birds were so intent on eating that half a dozen of them tolerated us standing not so far away from them for a while. At least…
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Marmota Monax Update
How many Groundhog/Woodchucks are there in Brooklyn? We saw three the other day.These two were munching near a burrow now completely covered by understory growth. The second pictured here was rather smaller than the first, so perhaps it was a youngster. The third of the day’s Whistlepigs was some distance away.
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Sand Crab
The Atlantic Sand Crab (Emerita talpoida) is also known as the mole crab and the sand flea (confusingly, since there are, in fact, amphipod sand fleas).These streamlined animals are, at any rate, crustaceans. As Sarah Oktay explains from the place I first came across them, they are surf-zone specialists, and pretty important in that harsh…
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Fireflies
You know what I like about this blogging project of mine? The fact that there is always something new to learn. It’s the universe, after all, and I will never ever even begin to contain it.For instance, this is one of the Lampyridae family of beetles, the fireflies, lightning bugs, glowworms. But hold on a…
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Air Bee and Bee
A local bee motel. There was a wasp checking in, to. This is a rather elaborate one, offering several possibilities for wood- and cavity- nesters. (But don’t forget the ground-nesters!) The Xerces Society has some helpful hints on building your own to encourage pollinators. Update and caveats 11/19: these elaborate, crowded situations don’t replicate natural…
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Seaside Dragonlet
This is a female Seaside Dragonlet (Erythrodiplax berenice), spotted recently on Plumb Beach. This is the only American species of dragonfly that breeds in salt water, in this case probably the saltwater marsh tucked behind the beach. To be honest, I couldn’t see any of the handsome orange and black patterning on the abdomen and…
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Sunset Park Osprey
We’re at the limits of my optical abilities here, but it looks like the Ospreys nesting atop a light tower on the parking lot of the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal have had at least one youngster. Note that spotty back; young birds have this scaling of the feathers. Possibly two. One of these birds flew…
Backyard and Beyond 