Great Swamp
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Barely Glimpsed Birds
This is a natural history blog, not a photographic one. I try to use my best pictures for illustrative purposes, but my PowerShot SX50 definitely isn’t a SLR with a long lens. Sometimes I get a fine shot. Often not. You’ll notice few in-flight images here, for instance. And sometimes I get shots for reference’s…
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Snake in the Moss
Northern Water Snake (Nerodia sipedon). Saw a half dozen basking off of the boardwalk. This common snake, second only to the Garter in abundance regionally, is, like that species, somewhat varied in form. You can see stripes on this youngish one, but most Great Swamp specimens look very dark and unmarked (as they dry in…
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May Day
Some mammals for Monday and May Day.Did you ever wonder why they, and we, are called mammals? I have to admit I never did until last week. Linnaeus came up with the term Mammalia in 1758, from the Latin mammae, meaning the breasts. This we all know. Yet everything else Linnaeus named is based on…
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But Let’s Not Get Too Sentimental
American Robin nests are the easiest to see, not least because there are so many of them. This one was in Inwood Hill Park. When we walked by again coming down the hill, it wasn’t filled by the parent bird. Sometimes the birds will dart off, but that does leave the eggs vulnerable. The day…
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Don’t Know Jack?
Spathe and spadix: Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum), a plant with many other names, including Bog Onion. I’ve never come across so many. Unfortunately, they were off the boardwalk, so I could not lift their hoods to check out their engines.
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Squirrel Pile
You didn’t think I was going to let you get away with just one picture of the baby Gray Squirrel Pile, did you?
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What a Great Swamp!
I missed the emergence of Skunk Cabbage this year. Here’s some of the mature, cabbagy leaves as they look now. The time-travelling internet, however, can take us back to a previous year’s sprouting. It seems as if everything happens at once during spring. At Great Swamp NWR recently, we saw and heard so much it…
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3 Turtle Species
Spotted (Clemmys guttata).Painted (Chrysemys picta).Snapping (Chelydra serpentina). All on the same day at Great Swamp. There were two Snappers, the pictured one being enormous; a dozen Painted; and half-a-dozen Spotted. I am most enamored of the Spotted. Here’s another:
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Bugs At Last!
You’ve been waiting patiently all winter long for some serious insect life to liven things up. This was the week! Two color variations of the Spotted Lady Beetle (Coleomegilla maculata).These are in the Coccinellidae family of ladybugs, but clearly not the usual rounded shape of the classic VW. Sure are spotty, though: another common name…
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Azures and Beauties of Spring
A tiny butterfly with lovely blue wings — on the inside, anyway, meaning you only see the color when they fly.Here’s a pair making more. Quite a complicated taxonomy, evidently. So that was last week. This week I saw only a few of the Azures flitting about. That precious blue! But this week, there were…
Backyard and Beyond 