Green-Wood
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Hatchin’ Still
We began the winter with White-breasted Nuthatches, and as we near the end of it… three of them were working over this old horse chestnut, whispering amongst themselves. This one kept finding tidbits in this tree cave. On an hour’s walk in very chilly Green-Wood recently, I came across around a dozen of these nuthatches,…
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Pupa Knows Best
Revisiting this pupa of what I think is an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail in better light and because I find it fascinating. If you look closely, you can see breathing holes on the segments. And the support filament that secures the lower end (or right third in the horizontal view) of the structure to the rock.…
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Gymnocladus dioicus
The distinctive bark of a young Kentucky coffeetree.The branches look dead in winter, bare of twigs, the buds hidden away. The genus name translates as “naked branch.”The high top of this older male tree looked amazingly shrubby.A nearby female was festooned with seed pods.The bark of a mature specimen. Of trees and their memories: there’s…
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Red-tailed Hawk…
Continuing from yesterday… This yearling Red-tailed Hawk, which I’m pretty sure is the same one I’ve seen in this area of Green-Wood repeatedly, had recently eaten something.Swallowed the portion stored in the crop,and excreted.Then it started looking around the neighborhood.Next to this tombstone was an evergreen bush.Hawk just waded into it.And pulled out a dead…
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Raptor Wednesday — Birthday Edition
I almost walked into this Red-tailed Hawk before seeing it. I backed up and went around a handy mausoleum, used another mausoleum for cover, and ended up within ten feet. For nearly fifteen minutes, I got to watch.That’s food bulging in the bird’s crop. You can also see the stuffed crop pushing the feathers out…
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Mammal Monday
In which we attempt to glide your way into the working week with something mammiferous. Twice I passed this hole-in-the-bole recently and the Blue Jays were screaming and the Red-breasted Nuthatches were wailing and one or two jays actually got on the lip of the hole and peeked in. “By Jove, there’s something in there,…
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Weekend Update
Two and a half hours in Green-Wood this morning, and not a single raptor sighting. That’s unusual for a winter day. As I was walking home, a block away from the southern edge of the cemetery, I heard a Raven croaking. I turned to see it heading towards Green-Wood. Because I’d turned around, I saw…
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Surprising Teal
I couldn’t determine what this was from a distance, where it was dwarfed by a herd of Canada Geese.Even close by, I was running through the names of the ducks in a bird ID app.That moire pattern! The stripe! That head!Of course, “wigeon” and “gadwall,” among others, don’t come up if you type in “duck”….…
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More Cooper
Of late, the Cooper Hawks I’ve seen have been in the air, as yesterday’s post, or huddling in the yews and arbor vitae. But this one was perching as bold as brass… or is that rusty iron? With nary a Blue Jay in sight… The Jays have been abundant in Green-Wood this winter. They let…
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Ravens
I usually hear them before I see them. Brooklyn’s Common Ravens regularly fly across the bow, the view from here down to the coast of Upper New York Bay. They are generally quite vocal, which helps to distinguish them from the crows from afar. In this case, the somewhat swine-like krongking was right overhead. The bird…
Backyard and Beyond 