Prospect Park
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Last Woodcock
Orange-bellied American Woodcock taken by Red-tailed Hawk. Dramatic, but not the last word. The other night, we heard a few Woodcocks, who have some great alternative names (bog snipe, bog sucker, timberdoodle, Labrador twister), at Floyd Bennett Field. The males were calling, then flying into the air twittering and burbling to impress potential mates. The…
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More Woodcock
Positioned high and back, these eyes can see threats from behind and above. We tread very carefully and left it as it was in that snow hole.Shhh. * Amazing! The Trumpidiot in charge of the Department of HHS, who was, you will recall, approved by the Republicans even in the face of some insider trading,…
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NOGO-A-GoGo
There’s a system of four letter codes birding banders/ringers use to identify bird species. It’s usually made up of the first two letters of the bird’s common name, which is frequently two words long. Thus NOrthern GOshawk is NOGO. Just what you needed, right? Three things to call ’em: a common name, a scientific binomial…
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Woodcock Madness
A few of the nine American Woodcock I saw on Thursday in Prospect Park. Or, in this one’s case:Outside the park. On Vanderbilt St. in Windsor Terrace. I herded this one off the street. A stalking cat gave me the side-eye for doing so.The bird landed in the only patch of open ground around. But then the…
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Tufted
I’ve never had such an obliging Tufted Titmouse before. The binomial, Baeolophus bicolor, translates as small crest of two colors. More fun with names on this MSU page. * Let’s pause today, in light of yet another court staying the latest edition of Trump’s religious bigotry, to remember a despised alien “race” that professed a…
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Chippy
The forecast is calling for a foot of snow. Quite a rollercoaster of weather we’ve been having. Last week, it was up 60 degrees F. The Chipmunks (Tamias striatus) were busy in the sunshine. Don’t let the cuteness fool you: these are pretty effective predators as well as gatherers. They will definitely raid bird nests,…
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Sprung
Tossing their pollen into the air… Scott Pruitt, the oil and gas industry operative given the hammer to destroy our environmental protections, claims that physics and chemistry are bunk. (Such a good lesson for students, but, then, the person put in charge of education doesn’t even know what education is; she thinks it’s a fundamentalist-infected…
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Thoreau Thursday
Yesterday in Prospect, the rites of spring were springing. An astonishing twenty-six Wood Ducks were to be found on the Pools. Chipmunks and turtles were out and about in the unseasonable warmth. Behold, two European Goldfinches, far from home. The first Mourning Cloak of the year, velvet over the sere leaves. A pair of male…
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Barking Mad Monday
The distinctive bark of Beech (Fagus), its typical smoothness broken up by age.Hackberry (Celtis). On the young trees especially, these nobby, layered, butte-like protuberances are characteristic. The red hairs of a Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) vine find them a good place to anchor.This is a mature Carolina Silverbell (Halesia carolina).And this strange stuff is Fetid…
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Frozen
An early form of writing or waterfowl prints in the ice? “Amazingly, we take for granted that instinct for survival, fear of death, must separate us from the happiness of pure and uninterpreted experience, in which body, mind, and nature are the same. And this debasement of our vision, the retreat from wonder, the backing…
Backyard and Beyond 