Jamaica Bay
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Recent Birds
All the evidence pointed to nesting American Oystercatchers in here. Keep your dogs on leash!Brand new Starlings have been everywhere.A fledged Chipping Sparrow. Hardly looks it, but could fly.Quiet while the parent was foraging nearby, but loud when the parent was near.Here’s another, some days later.And another…Common Grackle fledgling. Yellow Warbler: one of the few…
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Diamondbacks
It’s hard to see through the intervening plants, but this terrapin is just starting to dig a hole for her eggs. We were on the path. This is an excellent example of why people need to stay on the path out at Jamaica Bay, as well as Salt Marsh Nature Center where Killdeer and Oystercatchers…
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Red-wings
At least five male Red-wing Blackbirds were all over this Common Grackle at Jamaica Bay. In the last picture, one is quite literally riding the CG out of the town. Nobody says “get off my lawn” quite like a Red-winged Blackbird. Backyard and Beyond has a friend who was chased out of a swamp once…
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Recent Birds
Eastern Willet.Red-winged Blackbird female.Tree Swallow male.The male was perched above this nest box with a female boldly covering the entrance.Red-breasted Mergansers.Yellow-crowned Night-heron. House Wren.
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Monarch Monday
Some of the dozen Monarch caterpillars (Danaus plexippus) seen feasting on swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) in the Bronx recently. This was my highest ever count to this date, although to be fair I’m much better at spotting them now. Good to see some action on one of the other milkweeds besides A. syriaca.In Queens a…
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Ischnura ramburii
Wednesday is traditionally Raptor Day here at B&B. Damselflies are quite the airborne predators, so…. This one is an immature female Rambur’s Forktail (Ischnura ramburii), spotted at Jamaica Bay with numerous others of her species. I’ve seen a male away from the Bay, in Green-Wood once. Several of the Ischnura genus have orange colored immature…
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Milkweed Continues
Large Milkweed Bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus) on common milkweed pod. This I learned: a note in Evan’s NWF Field Guide to Insects and Spiders says this species has been used extensively in physiological experiments. Easy to raise, they were also used to test insecticides from the 1940s. Carolina Biological Supply sells them for uses in experiments…
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Nesting
Two Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) were cutting across the parking lot repeatedly. They were gathering nest material: Seems awfully late, doesn’t it? Many species have already fledged this year. Others are well into incubation. But Cedar Waxwings are very late nesters: they want their young to be hungry around the same time as summer’s fruits…
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Raptor Wednesday
Red tail feathers coming in! This Buteo jamaicensis looks like it was one of last year’s fledglings. They don’t get their brick-red tails until they’re a year old. Also a good view of the cummerbund-like belly-band that most of our best-dressed eastern Red-tailed Hawks sport.
Backyard and Beyond 