insects
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Wandering Glider
The Wandering Glider (Pantala flavescens) also known as the Globe Skimmer, because it’s found world-wide around the tropics and near-tropics. As its common name suggests, this species is a mover, flying constantly, nearly non-stop, but sometimes it does perch (like at night). This one was hanging out about nine feet up. Nothing is easy about…
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Flying Now
There are moments when the beauty of the world takes your breath away. Like, for instance, when a Red-spotted Purple (Limenitis arthemis) spreads its wings in a patch of sunlight, opening and closing them in quick succession — as if were silently clapping — and flashing this incredible blue iridescence. And then you remember why…
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Rough Stinker
One of the Brochymena genus Rough Stink Bugs. I think this may be an instar of B. quadripustulata, since it has the four spots or bumps, but the shield pattern isn’t quite like an adult’s (yet). These stink bugs are cryptically colored to blend in with bark, but they really stick out on a leaf.…
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Sphex
For the budding naturalists I met in the park while photographing these wasps, which of course I couldn’t remember the name of. There were about half a dozen on this milkweed, more than I’ve ever seen at once. This is the Great Black Wasp (Sphex pensylvanicus). The adults, like many of the big wasps, are…
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Flying Now
The Common Sootywing (Pholisora catullus). A tiny — wingspan is less than an inch — fluttery butterfly, that looks black from a distance, but up close is revealed to be a rich brown.
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C/CKW
The Cicada Killer Wasps (Sphecius speciosus) are out and about now, collecting pollen at flowers to eat, stabbing cicadas for their young…I’m not telling, but here’s a Dog Day cicada (genus Tibicen), more heard than seen by we ground-huggers.The two wasps pictured above are males. They’re smaller than the females. Here’s a female, scare-the-horses-ginormous, patrolling…
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Lilypad Forktail
Lilypad Forktail (Ischnura kellicotti) male damselfly on a lily pad. The location was a big clue to identifying this small damselfly (a fair number of damselfly species are electric blue), which spends its life on and around waterlilies. The downward bending of the abdomen tip when it poses is also characteristic of this species. The…
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Flying Now
Another black and yellow animal for the day. The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus). All over the place right now, but hard to get a lens on unless they are feeding. Mostly I see them moving. This is the largest regional butterfly, and pretty much unmistakable, although further north the slightly smaller P. canadensis is…
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Black and Yellow
Black and Yellow Mud-Dauber (Sceliphron caementarium). Remember when they spent a winter nesting in the Back 40? And then bundled out of their mud huts after about 9 months entombed in hard mud like ancient Egyptians?
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Dead Wood?
The fence posts in Brooklyn Bridge Park are made from Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia), a durable, naturally rot-resistant wood. Of course, like anything in a natural environment, even one as heavily managed as this, it will end up having more than a single, intended purpose.The top, for instance, is a great place for birds to…
Backyard and Beyond 