Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world. "The place to observe nature is where you are."—John Burroughs
Slug eggs! I think. Quite small.
I didn’t notice them at first, as I was photographing this beetle under a log.
Some beetles are shy. Only later did I see the spheres in the photograph.
I’ve been delving into the archives to see what else has turned up in early Aprils past:
2018: Brooklyn Kestrels!
2017: Some turtles in oldest Virginia.
2016: Accipiter bath.
2015: Lores of an egret.
2012: Leaves of three.
This is a must-read on thinking during a pandemic.
In the Japanese turnip greens, purchased in Brooklyn but sourced in Lancaster PA. Perhaps one of the threeband slugs of the genus Amibigolimax.
Sautéed the greens after a good washing, with some lettuce, garlic, and hot pepper flakes. The turnips themselves, which are quite small, were peeled and chopped up for a bean salad.
Little freshwater mollusks in the Physa genus, according to the iNaturalist community. The aperture is on the left side, hence sinistral. 
In the Sylvan Water. How did they get here? Did they arrive via muddy duck feet, a noted transportation system for plants and animals?
Less than a centimeter long, with some smaller. To the nearly six-foot tall observer, they look like tiny rocks.
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Nathaniel Rich’s NYTimes Magazine article on climate change last summer has been expanded into a book called Losing Earth: A Recent History.
This review provides a good synopsis. It also notes something Rich dug up that I’d never heard of before, a JASON (scientific advisors) report to the Department of Energy. The Long Term Impact of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide on Climate was published in 1979. Nineteen-fucking-seventy-nine. I tracked it down. The brainiacs suggest that if current conditions etc. continued the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide would double by 2035 and the resulting warmer planet would have ominous results the world over. The report was largely ignored. 1979!
Since then, the carbon giants, whose own scientists told them the same thing, have so successfully poisoned so many susceptible minds, that the likes of the Oregon situation is unfolding.
Hot and fecund summer comes at you and doesn’t let up. My camera bursts with photos after a walk, an exploration, an adventure. Time barrels along, even though the humidity seems to want to slow it down. These are all from a trip three weeks ago to Marine Park on Brooklyn’s southern edge.
A nice little example of the Spartina alterniflora and Geukensia demissa relationship.
This dense wet muck soil would be anoxic without the fiddler crabs burrowing into it. They’re the third leg (claw?) of the salt marsh’s grass/mussel/crab trifecta.
But be careful, little crabs, the Great Egret stalks at low tide.
Even murkier, a Yellow-crowned Heron does the same.
It’s also time for shorebirds to start thinking/feeling about heading south. This yellowlegs was grooming and resting. Greater, methinks, not Lesser.
Overhead, fledgling Barn Swallows were being fed in mid-air. A half dozen take a break; there’s also a Tree Swallow at the top.
The caterpillar here is probably destined for the next generation of Red-winged Blackbirds.
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The post-truth reactionary regime is already going strong: half the states are lying about abortion.
A brief trip to some of the wet rainforests of the northwest was a revelation.
There will be more to come, but shall we begin with an atypical sublimity?
Banana slug, Ariolimax genus,perhaps A. columbianus, Pacific Banana Slug? There are two other species, and differentiating them sounds a bit gross. About 4″ long.
These are named for the ripe-banana spotting. Here’s another Ariolimax, munching mushrooms, of which there were plenty.
Leopard Slugs (Limax maximus). An introduced species, thinking about making more of themselves. And what a process that is!
Three different specimens of our old friend Cepaea nemoralis.
The snail’s “foot,” which gave rise to the name for this whole class of Molluscs, Gastropoda, which means simply stomach-foot (and is anatomically incorrect; the stomach is in the portion of the animal that is inside the shell).
Just a size comparison with some other snails found during this clean up. The mm ruler looks bent because the macro lens distorts at the edges, either that or the omphalos of the shells draws gravity in like a black hole.
Unknown species on the left;Discus rotundatus on the right.
These pontoon-like things were flipped over between Piers 5 & 6 recently, revealing the:
barnacles and
blue mussels that have found them to be a worthy foundation.
Even though we have at least one species of chiton, or coat-of-mail shell, in our northeastern waters, I’ve never come across one. The eight plates, or valves, that make up the shell usually break apart and scatter to the waves. This one was actually in a pile of shells placed as decoration in the villa we stayed in at Klein Bay. 
The scales on the animal’s girdle have a look of snakeskin. Speaking of girdles, the name chiton, for you fashion-backwards types, means mollusc in Latin, and comes from the Greek khiton, meaning tunic. Some of the statues in your neighborhood Greek Wing are wearing these tunics still.
The Atlantic ribbed mussel, Geukensia demissa, at low tide at Calvert Vaux Park. Unlike the more famous (because delicious) blue mussel, Mytilus edulis, the ribbed mussel, which is found up and down the East Coast, prefers brackish waters. 
They are a keystone species for salt marsh habitat and vital to Jamaica Bay. Establishing beds within the roots of cordgrass like Spartina, the clumps of mussels help to stabilize the plants while providing nutrients for them. They are also food for gulls and I assume other shore birds like oystercatchers. One source notes that while they are edible for humans, they have an unpleasant taste — which I would have thought was a good definition of inedible.
Any port in a storm.
Backyard and Beyond 