Green-Wood
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Beechwood
Looks like something you’d find along the banks of the Withywindle, doesn’t it?
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Springing/Budding
Sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) bud emerging. Today marks the vernal or spring equinox, when the hours of day and night are exactly 12 hours each — except that they are not. But you can take that up with your local astronomer if you’d like. Otherwise, enjoy the eruption of life here in the northern hemisphere in…
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Galls in Winter
The leaves of this White Oak in Green-Wood have refused to fall. They held up to Sandy, the Nor’easter a week later, and all the rest of the winter so far. Actually, some oaks are tenacious leaf-holders, only shedding them just before, or just as, new leaf growth begins to bud.So I got to take…
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Cold-schmold!
The Monk Parakeets, also known as Quaker Parrots (Myiopsitta monachus) in Green-Wood Cemetery were celebrating the return of (barely) above freezing temperatures yesterday with their usual racket. Once, long ago in Green-Wood, with my bins in hand identifying me as a weirdo, a couple came up and asked if I was there to look at…
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Brooklyn Raven
Winter, especially at the tail-end of a bona fide cold snap like we’ve had most of the week, generally presents few surprises for the nature watcher. But this morning, as I wandered about Green-Wood Cemetery, I watched a Common raven (Corvus corax) and a Red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) contest the airspace overhead. The Red-tailed was…
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Glazed oysters
Water spilling off a tree stump had coated and frozen around these mushrooms, giving them a glaze. I believe they may be Oyster Mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus), or another Pleurotus species. The gills make a pleasing pattern:
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Hedgehog Gall
Hedgehog gall, caused by a tiny cynipid wasp, Acraspis erinacei, on leaves of White Oak (Quercus alba) in Green-Wood Cemetery.There are three to five larval cells in each of these galls. Only female adults will emerge from these in the late fall, and lay eggs (without mating) on leaf buds. These eggs over-winter, hatching in…
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Green-Wood
Walking through the unruly lawns of Green-Wood Cemetery this time of year stirs up grasshoppers, skippers, and moths, who scurry away from your feet in the grass. Sulphurs and Cabbage White butterflies flitter about, sometimes laddering up together in mating flights.An occasional giant butterfly, like this Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes), is seen.Something had nibbled on…
Backyard and Beyond 