Hudson
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The forest for the trees
A hike in the fall woods is always a sensual and philosophical experience.I was in a yellow light under oaks and beeches in an overcast sky, later speared through by shafts of sunlight.Yes, both the woods and I were speared. My eyes kept shifting from the whole to the parts. Walking over even relatively smooth…
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In the Hudson Highlands
On the flank of Mt. Taurus above Cold Spring, NY, yesterday. (Click on this image to view a larger version.)
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Pyrrharctia isabella
What is Autumn without a Wooly Bear crossing your path?
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Excavations
Evidence of Pileated Woodpecker in the Hudson Highlands. The biggest hole is 7″ tall. This kind of excavation work is standard for this crow-sized woodpecker, which has a skull designed to absorb all that pounding.
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To every thing there is a season
In memory of Pete Seeger, some photographs of the great Hudson River, which he campaigned to clean up, rather quixotically when he started in 1969, after more than a century of its being used as an industrial toilet. And some reflections. In Ullapool, Scotland, some years ago I went to a pub late in the…
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Weekend Birds, Ice, Sky
Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglots). This bird was quite territorial, chasing robins, sparrows, and me, making two passes overhead. Spring must be not too far away.Downy Woodpercker (Picoides pubescens). A rather subtle tapping alerted me to this one.Size comparison between Herring (Larus smithsonianus) and Ring-billed (Larus delawarensis). All of the above were in Brooklyn Bridge Park.Gratuitous:…
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Hiking the Highlands
The last two Sundays I’ve gone up to the eastern Hudson Highlands, just above Cold Spring. The earlier trip, I went along the Wilkinson Memorial, Notch, Brook, and Cornish trails. The Brook Trail, red blazed, follows Breakneck Brook, which cuts through the valley pictured below:That’s Breakneck Ridge and Sugarloaf on the other side. Picture taken…
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Ice, eagles
Yesterday morning, on a blustery cold day in Columbia County, New York, we listened to the ice moving down the Hudson. This wasn’t a very loud sound, but it was hypnotic hearing the crinkle of ice folding into itself, the cristle of it moving south with the current. (Excuse the smudge of my frozen finger…
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Two Invasives
One strategy for taking over the world is just to produce massive amounts of your kind. Some of ’em are going to take. Sometimes a whole lot of them are going to take. Here are the reproductive agents of two introduced species that have become invasive in our part of the world:Water chestnut, devil pod,…
Backyard and Beyond 