Prospect Park
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Listening
Last Sunday, I led a group of twenty on what I called the Listening Tour in Prospect Park. The tour was sponsored by Proteus Gowanus, the interdisciplinary gallery and reading room, which is currently hosting an exhibition called “Paradise.” We were in Prospect for the simple reason that it is a paradise of birds. A…
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BK 4BR Park Vue Fully Stocked
The Nethermead Arches is a great place for wasp condos. The bridge provides protection from the sun and rain, so organpipe mud-dauber wasps, Trypoxylon politum, build their nests upon its vertical surfaces. Each tube here is made up of several separate cells. An egg was laid in each cell with a cache of paralyzed spiders…
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American Chestnut
Until recently, I didn’t know that American chestnut trees, Castanea dentata, were growing in Prospect Park. Turns out some were planted in 2004. Several of these have survived, but, like the 1,400 chestnut trees killed in the park in the early 20th century, they are doomed by the chestnut blight. This fungus, Cryphonectria parasitica, was…
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Lost Dogs
Won’t you please help these dogs find new homes with responsible pet owners?Just a small sampling of unleashed dogs in Prospect Park. Some humans continue to flaunt the common sense rules about keeping dogs leashed in all parts of the park except for the Long Meadow, Nethermead, and Peninsula during off-leash hours (9pm-1am & 5am-9am).…
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Two birds
Near the dog bathing beach at the Upper Pool in Prospect Park, I found a couple of noteworthy birds the other day:The most common bird species in the park is surely the American robin, Turdus migratorius, which you can find on the meadows and in the woods and everywhere in between. This particular one stands…
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Save the dates
May 1 The Listening Tour. I will be leading a Proteus Gowanus event on May Day at 6:00 a.m., as part of the interdisciplinary gallery and reading room’s Paradise exhibition. We will meet at the Grand Army Plaza entrance to Prospect Park. Then we’ll SILENTLY walk through Prospect Park at the crack of dawn to…
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Starlings
A pair of starlings, Sturnus vulgaris, on the Nethermead were locked in combat the other day. Literally locked, as one had the other’s legs in its grasp. The fight went on and on, until the captive one either broke free or the captor relented. Then they flew off in the same direction, and it looked…
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Mushroom season
The early days of spring, with their rain and damp, are good for mushrooms. These fruiting bodies of fungi grow quite quickly when conditions are right. This one was peaking out of the leaf-litter in Prospect Park over the weekend. I’m pretty clueless on identifying mushrooms, but I think it’s a polypore of some kind.…
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Uneven Development
Forsythia blooming: the microclimate of a ESE-facing wall on Sydney Place intensifies the sun. Meanwhile, in Prospect Park:The trees bid their time.
Backyard and Beyond 