Brooklyn
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New Year’s Ravens
Two Common Ravens (Corvus corax) were hanging around Sunset Park’s coast yesterday.I first spotted one from a distance while I was in the new Bush Terminal Park. I followed 1st Avenue to its end at 39th St. to see if I could get a better view. Did I ever! Turned out to be pair, and…
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Saw-whet
Eleven owls, from five species, were tallied during the Kings County Christmas Bird Count a week ago. Pretty impressive! Here’s one of the two Northern Saw-whets (Aegolius acadicus).This is the smallest (8″ length, 17″ wingspan), and probably the most common, owl in the northeast. The bird’s common name is a real throwback: the tooting call…
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Wintering Hawk
I usually see immature Cooper’s Hawks (Accipiter cooperii) around the borough. Over the weekend, though, I saw this nice specimen of an adult in Brooklyn Heights. The russet-lined front is a give-away for a mature bird from a distance. In truth, I barely saw the bird, since it was so high up in a tree…
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Aphrodite
Sea foam lapping along a bayside. This froth is created the agitation of dissolved salts, proteins, fats, dead algae, and other organic matter churning around in every ounce of sea water.Here it’s along a sheltered bay, which is probably full of organic (and, sadly, non-organic) run-off from the land and not subject to annihilating wave…
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Insistent Kinglet(s)
I have had two run-ins with Ruby-crowned Kinglets recently in Brooklyn Bridge Park. These birds are called kinglets because they are little kings, fearless creatures. They are the birds I’ve always gotten closest too; or, put another way, they are birds that have always gotten closest to me. Easily within hand’s reach. They have other…
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Lord of All He Surveys
Richard Upjohn’s Gothic-y gate to Green-Wood Cemetery. The Monk Parakeets have colonized it with their massive stick nest. Maybe it reminds them of the Andes? On a recent weekend, the birds were unusually quiet. I spotted half a dozen nearby.And up there with the lightning rod? Our old friend the American Kestrel (Falco sparverius). That…
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Dark
Our wet days and autumnal leaves are ideal for making for a lot of sidewalk prints. The Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum) leaf above the Pin Oak (Quercus palustris) leaf below are both particularly good examples.
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A Good Walk
A good walk in Prospect Park with Ken Chaya, who always adds immeasurably to my knowledge. This young Red Oak (Quercus rubra) was holding on to its youthfully large leaves.A particularly nice spread of “knees” of a Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum). It was once thought that these projections from the roots were pneumatophores, helping the…
Backyard and Beyond 