Prospect Park
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Cycles
If you’ve been following this blog a while, you’ve seen this before. Not this photo, not this example, but similar. For nature follows cycles, and so too does this blog. Pieces of the past summer’s Bald-faced hornet (Dolichovespula maculata) nests, now abandoned by the generation of 2012, get blown out of trees this time of…
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Counting Crows and Others
Today’s the start of the annual Christmas Bird Count. This tradition started 113 years ago as a protest against the then popular Christmas Hunts, in which pretty much everything that flew was targeted to be blown out of the sky. A change for the better, I think. The counts go on for the next few…
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Ten Thousand Trees
New York City lost ten thousand trees in the great storm. Many other trees had limbs torn asunder, like the one pictured above, whip-snapped by the fierce winds. By now, the streets and parks have largely, but not completely, been cleared of this wreckage, but the gaps will be around for a long time, in…
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Evening Grosbeak
A female Evening Grosbeak (Coccothraustes vespertinus) making a rare appearance in Prospect Park. It has been around for a few days. This was this morning at 10:30. The last recorded sighting of this species was a dozen years ago, and before that, 1989. On the right is another member of the finch family, a Pine…
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Barnacle Goose, Prospect Lake
A Barnacle Goose (Branta leucopsis) hanging out with some Canada Greese (Branta canadensis) on the Lake in Prospect Park. A most uncommon sight in the northeast, since this bird is native to Greenland and Northern Europe. First one I’ve ever seen. Probably the first one ever seen in Prospect. If you go looking for it,…
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Prospect Park
The Upper Pool is just starting to blush with the coming of fall. A walk through the park yesterday. We saw: Wood Duck, Mallard, Red-tailed Hawk, Rock Pigeon, Mourning Dove, Chimney Swift, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, American Kestrel, Blue Jay, Black-capped Chickadee, Red-breasted Nuthatch, White-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, House Wren, Carolina…
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Pulling “chestnuts” out of the etymological fire
The Chestnut Oaks, Quercus montana, are ripening in Prospect park. This species’ common name stems from the leaves, which are somewhat chestnut-like, although the acorn, over an inch long in this species, is all oak.The remains of a squirrel feast on what I believe is Yellow Buckeye, Aesculus flava, in the Vale. Included here because…
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Prospect Park
Fall migration has begun, and the park is filling again with birds on their way south. I had a morning full of American Redstarts around Lookout Hill. And there was of course much else to see. And hear. A few of them: Long shot across the Upper Pool. Several Wood ducks and a couple of…
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Twelve Spotted
The Twelve-spotted skimmer (Libellula pulchella) is one of the easiest dragonflies to identify. You can even tell from the shadow. This is the female — the males have white patches between the dark spots.
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Wasps
It is the season of wasps. Seen on a walk through Prospect Park this week:The very elegant Isodontia elegans, one of the grass-carrying wasps, and evidently a species without a common name. The grass they clip and carry is used to line their nests, which are made in pre-existing cavities. They eat pollen themselves and…
Backyard and Beyond 