Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

Brooklyn

  • Sweetgum

    A pod of the American Sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) on a recent bright day.These little nuggets came out the mouth-like openings of the pod, so I assumed they were the seeds. But I was wrong. Later, walking with tree-maven Ken Chaya, we knocked another pod. The winged seeds, or samaras, are seen here with more of…

    mthew

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  • GBH

    A Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) in Green-Wood. *** Today is “Giving Tuesday.” The vast range of options suggestions the desperate straits of our world, as does the fact that these entities have to go a-begging. (Philanthropy, a system in which the very rich set socio-political agendas while avoiding taxes, is the flip side of…

    mthew

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  • Paper

    All that remains of that Bald-faced Hornet (Dolichovespula maculata) nest on the memorial I photographed in September. While examining the amazing paper the wasps make to cover their comb, I found something elsenesting between the layers. Oops, sorry about that!

    mthew

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  • The Whiteness of the Squirrel

    This Gray Squirrel obviously isn’t very gray. It has been seen out and about in Prospect Park lately. Several “white” — or ivory — squirrels have been noted in the park and Park Slope in recent years, but they’re not all that common here.Like the black squirrels also seen, these are all variations on the…

    mthew

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  • Cassin’s Kingbird & Co.

    In what seems to be only the second New York state record, a Cassin’s Kingbird (Tyrannus vociferans) has been hanging out next to Floyd Bennett Field’s community garden. The species’ usual habitat is in the Southwest and Mexico, so it’s a long way from home. The temperature was in the 30s when I saw the…

    mthew

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  • Oak

    I’ve noticed these grapefruit/softball-sized growths on the side of this big old Red Oak (Quercus rubra) before. But on my most recent pass, there was a new one. Turns out to be a fungus.

    mthew

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  • Japanese Maple 3

    Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum) in Green-Wood. (All three of these pictures were taken on the same day within a few moments of each other, under the same overcast light. No filtering or fiddling.)

    mthew

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  • Japanese Maple 2

    Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum) in Green-Wood. (All three of these pictures were taken on the same day within a few moments of each other, under the same overcast light. No filtering or fiddling.)

    mthew

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  • Japanese Maple 1

    Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum) in Green-Wood Cemetery. This is the first of three photos of separate trees located next to each other. All three pictures were taken on the same day within a few moments of each other, under the same overcast light. No filtering or fiddling.

    mthew

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  • Sassafras

    These two giants surprised me in Green-Wood recently. They’re Sassafrass (Sassafras albidum), usually seen as a rather smaller tree. I did a double-take or three. But there they were, the distinctive three leaf-shapes. And check out this bark, characteristic of old specimens: it is deeply, deeply furrowed, like the Southwestern canyon-lands.

    mthew

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