Bush Terminal
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Blue Monday
Barn Swallow. Hirundo rustica. At Bush Terminal Park. Unusually, there was at least one Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) with the Barns there that day. I see Trees more commonly at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, where it’s the Barn who is rare.The blue here is on the greenish side, as it is wont to be depending…
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A Perfect Day for Night Heron Fishing
Black-crowned Night Heron, Nycticorax nycticorax, the world’s most wide-spread heron species.Of course we have them in Brooklyn. This was a morning low tide at Bush Terminal Park.They tend to be most active at night, as per their namesake, but if the foraging is good… A greenish tinge in the lores on this one? Have never…
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All the Birds
This was my Big Day, on foot through Prospect, Green-Wood, and then down to Bush Terminal Park. Train to park, bus home. In chronological order. Yard Birds: seen from apartment or on way to subway House Sparrow Starling Rock Pigeon Osprey (on nest) Chimney Swift Herring Gull American Robin Blue Jay In Prospect Park: Gray…
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Smoke On The Water
Yesterday’s bone-cold weather created an interesting phenomenon that made it look like the Upper Harbor was smoking. The combination of very cold air, zero on the Fahrenheit scale and feeling even colder because of the wind, and the warmer water made for a kind of low level fog clumping and billowing on the blue harbor.…
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Wing Complex
In addition to an entire dead Common Loon on the rocks of the jetty pier at Bush Terminal Park, there was this wing. I looked at it and was at a loss for what it might be. It didn’t hit any of the song bird possibilities, and this time of year those are much reduced.…
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Loon Lost
A Common Loon (Gavia immer) dead on the rocks at Bush Terminal Park. Paul Sweet, of the American Museum of Natural History, was there and showed us the prominent ridge of the sternum, which should have been smothered in fat and muscle. This suggested to him that this fish-devouring diver probably starved to death. Sometimes…
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Ravens, Still
I haven’t been getting out and about as much as I’d like. In the last month or so, I’d only seen Ravens twice. Two separate instances of a single bird. They aren’t always together, but the Bush Terminal birds are usually seen in some kind of airborne proximity. These birds work together well in pairs…
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Foggy Old Town
Nothing quite says “harbor” like a foghorn. This freakishly warm December has been producing intense fogs in the archipelago of New York City. Up here on the Harbor Hill Moraine, visibility has often been reduced to less than an avenue block away. It’s just about an avenue now as I write; a large antenna on the…
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Flight Sluggish and Swift
On a blooming goldenrod, the only visible flower around, a single bumblebee. It was warm enough yesterday for invertebrates, but they have damn few places to feed. This bee did seem a little sluggish, but it was roused by the proximity of my phone camera, and buzzed a short distance away, and then returned as…
Backyard and Beyond 