Brooklyn
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Webs
A complex of webs connected to a seven-foot-long horizontal piece of spidersilk. Remarkable. A view from the side of the complex, showing another web, making for one large and three satellite webs.The only spider in evidence was sucking on dinner.
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Chestnuts
American Chestnuts (Castanea dentata). Be careful handling these burrs, or pods: the spines are v. sharp! Most of the nuts produced by these young trees are scrawny, undeveloped things, quite fibrous inside, but they still seem to disappear into the maws of the squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis).This one was vocally displeased with my poaching of the…
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Dusky
A duskywing, perhaps Horace’s (Erynnis horatius), the other option being Juvenal’s (E. juvenalis). All very classical, no? The similar species overlap around here, with Juvenal’s the more northerly and Horace’s the more southerly.
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Pods and Seeds
Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa).Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata).Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca).The seeds of the above.Another Common, with Milkweed aphids (Aphis nerii) and Variegated Ladybugs (Hippodamia variegata).
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Common Yellowthroat
A male Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas), one of this year’s young. He was picking and pecking into that metal grill, which had collected leaves behind it, and hence some invertebrates.
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Yellow Bear
Yellow Bear caterpillar (Spilosoma virginica), sometimes known as the Yellow Wooly Bear. Compare with one I photographed last year: they come in a great range of colors. According to Wagner, the pale early instars are gregarious, the older instars wonder lonely as a cloud. (I may have hopped-up Wagner’s description a bit.)
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More Two-Spotted Ladybugs
The Catalpa trees grow and the big heart-shaped leaves attract aphids, lots of aphids. The aphids, tiny little white sucking machines, coat the leaves with their “dew” — what goes in must come out in some form — which in turn attracts ants and wasps. The aphids themselves attract ladybugs, hungry little beasts. All the…
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Heron Trio
From back to front, a Great Blue Heron, a Great Egret, and a Snowy Egret. Salt-marshing in Brooklyn. Heron. Egret. What’s the difference? “Egret” comes from the Fr. aigrette, which seems to have come out the Old High German heigir, which means… heron. But then you know a hawk from a handsaw, right? Hamlet should…
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Katydids
The trees are alive with the sound of music. At night. Katydids and crickets stridulating away, rubbing the pegged “file” of one wing against the ridge-like scraper of the other to produce those clicks, tisps, buzzes, etc. Each species has a distinctive sound: it’s the males marking their territory and calling to the females. Bonus…
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Bobolink
Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) perching at Marine Park Nature Center. This is the adult, non-breeding plumage. The species migrates to southern South America. Like many grassland species, its numbers are dropping because of habitat loss.
Backyard and Beyond 