Brooklyn
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Signs and Meanings
“‘You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.’” ~ A.C. Doyle.
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Raptor Wednesday
A rumor of an American Kestrel being heard and seen on Montague Street had my falcon-senses tingling Saturday. Exploring one of the alleys south of Montague, I faintly heard one of the birds, almost subliminally, just enough to make me look up: the little jet sliced the sky in half. Around the corner — voilà!…
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Crows
There are two species of crows here and along the East Coast: the American and Fish. It is hard to tell them apart by sight, but their voices are distinctive. Since this one wasn’t vocalizing, I can’t be sure which one it was. Fish Crows (Corvus ossifragus), as their name suggests, are usually associated with…
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Longleaf
I’m becoming obsessed with Pinus palustris, the longleaf pine that once covered 92 million acres of the southeast from Maryland to Texas, but now exists in only a handful of preserves. I’ve not seen it in its natural state, only as old lumber repurposed. That’s a piece of it above, one of the benches at…
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Raptor Wednesday
This was my winter of the Rough-legged Hawks (Buteo lagopus). I’d never seen these tundra-evolved raptors before, but the good, cold, blistering winds from the north brought them down to the coast of Long Island, possibly in larger numbers than usual, where they searched for grasslands similar to their northern habitat. Floyd Bennett Field. In…
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Ravens Making Ravens?
Remember when I saw a pair of Common Ravens flying and courting over a quiet (on the weekends) piece of the Sunset Park waterfront? It was a fantastic experience. I’ve been out to Bush Terminal Park several times since New Year’s Day, but didn’t have any luck in seeing the birds again until this weekend.…
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1843 All Over Again
Green-Wood Cemetery is large, its paths many. Recently I came across this and remembered I’d been here last May, but not since. The remains of the nest are still relatively protected. Robins will sometimes use old nests to build new nests atop of, so perhaps this coming May I’ll remember to return again and see…
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Airborne
A mass of gulls on Prospect Lake lift off in a cloud, swirling up high into the air.Most are Ring-billed, with the occasionally Herring and Greater Black-back, and sometimes something more exotic.
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Fifteen Doves
There are a few collective nouns for a group of Mourning Doves (Zenaida macroura): bevy, cote, dole/dule. Wouldn’t “cortege” be appropriate? And while we’re on the subject, what is the name for a group of collective nouns? A thesaurus of collective nouns? An obscurity? A venary?
Backyard and Beyond 