mammals
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Night Walk
A downy woodpecker patrols the trunk of a tree, the white strip down its back almost glowing as the light turns to dark. Above, a blue jay is remarkably quiet as it works out some issues before roosting for the night. As predicted, a young raccoon ambles out from the bushes to start pulling plastic…
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Chipmunk
No mean forager and predator, the Eastern Chipmunk (Tamias striatus) will eat just about anything, from acorns and nuts to baby birds, from slugs to insects to carrion. Our local ones are missing out on the bonanza of the 17-year cicadas, which are concentrated in Staten Island. Central Park has seen a rapid rise of…
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Prince’s Bay
A journey into the eroding underbelly of Staten Island.These were a surprise. Peacocks, screaming their haunting woman-in-peril scream on the grounds of the Seguine Mansion. Flannery O’Connor, who lived on a farm with 40 peafowl, said about the carrying voices of these birds, “To the melancholy this sound is melancholy, and to the hysterical it…
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Alert
I don’t know about you, but I need a mammal break. Look at those little ears! The Eastern Chipmunks (Tamias striatus) are out and about now that things have warmed up in the Ravine, Lullwater, and Midwood. One of the hundreds of reasons to keep your dogs leashed in those parts of the park where…
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Death and Life on the Gowanus
The northern, terminal end of the Gowanus Canal. Where we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. On Friday, a dolphin ended up in the canal, causing a media frenzy, including, evidently, a helicopter overhead, and the usual circus of social-media-alerted gawkers. (I was blessed to have missed it all.) The animal died in…
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The Case of the Headless Mouse
It was as cold as a Titmouse on a bare oak branch that morning. The call came in from the Mammal Division. I’d fallen asleep in my suit, Kirkegaard propped against my noise. My tongue felt like it had been ground up for dog-food and probably smelled like that, too, but I shook off my…
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Teeth
The tooth on the left was found at Dead Horse Bay. I think it’s actually two fused together because of the four roots. This is what I photographed for my Mystery post early this month. The one on the right was part of a horse’s skull found on the beach in Italy in the early…
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Mammal
Awwwww…. Some three feet off the ground, in the thick of the plants. We think it’s a young brown rat, Rattus norvegicus, whiskers atwitter.
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Brooklyn Sunset
I like to think of these as a herd of giraffe, heading towards the last watering hole of the day across the harbor in New Jersey.Brooklyn Bridge Park, where all these pictures were taken tonight, is scarce on mammals. This rat, a creature of the docks if there ever was one, was larger than it…
Backyard and Beyond 