Nantucket
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Furry moth
Perched briefly on a window, this moth gives us a nice view of its (rarely seen) underside.
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Further Extracts of a Sub-Sub-Librarian
I live in Brooklyn, located on the westernmost end of Long Island, but I also have a family connection to another island east of here. I graduated from high school on Nantucket, Mass., back in the last century, and go there still with some frequency. Between here and there there’s also a geographical connection: both…
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Last of the Curlews?
The last, the very last, Passenger Pigeon died in captivity (1914). So did the last Carolina Parakeet (1918). The last Heath Hen, named Booming Ben, died in the preserve set aside for the species on Martha’s Vineyard (1932).But we don’t know where or when (or even if) the last Eskimo Curlew died. The species, Numenius…
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Sparrow ID
Unaccountably without my bins, I snapped this with my camera’s zoom feature. That’s feature, not actually a zoom lens, unfortunately. Sure, it’s starting to look like it came out of Blow-Up, 1966, highlighting the unreliability of all representation. But, you will pay particular attention to the shortness of the tail. And could you convince yourself…
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Butterflies
American Copper, Lycaena phlaeas. Another name for them is Flame Copper. They are small and vivid.Common buckeye, Junonia coenia. This one kept leaping ahead of us on the path and required some very careful stalking. From F. Schuyler Mathews, Field Book of American Wild Flowers: Being a Short Description of Their Character and Habits, A…
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Island Bugs
Ah, summer, season of buzzing and flying and biting! The insects are out in force. OK, there’s really not that much biting, per se. Seen last week on Nantucket: One of the green metallic bees, genus Agapostemon, also known as sweat bees, on chicory flower. Note the big bundles of pollen around the legs. A…
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Cedar-Apple Rust
It’s been a good spring for cedar-apple rust. Two weeks ago during the great rain, I noticed several searches for the fungus, Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginianae, leading to my post of last year on the subject. This year I was on Nantucket to see the fungus in its blooming glory, all over the eastern red cedars in…
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Yard Snapper
Glancing up from a book I was reading while on Nantucket two weeks ago, I noticed something dark in the grass. A snapping turtle, Chelydra serpentina. And not the first time, either. Snappers can go some distance to lay their eggs. They are on the lookout for sandy soil to dig out for a nest.…
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Beach CSI
A beach is an inhospitable place. The wind turns sand into a blasting medium. The sea means a high level of salt, which is antagonistic to much life. In summer, the sand’s heat makes you jump. If you look closely, you’ll see invertebrates adapted to this harsh environment; there’s all sorts of life underground, especially…
Backyard and Beyond 