Prospect Park
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Preen
Northern Shoveler (Anas clypeata) male working on feather maintenance. There’s preening, and then there’s overweening preening. Did you see the Tiny-Fisted One’s Christmas “card” tweet? Cheeto Mussolini couldn’t even be bothered to gather together his klan o’ grifters for a bogus family picture. Sad.
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Snow Geese
Amidst perhaps 200 Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) on the Upper Pool, a trio of Snow Geese (Chen caerulescens).The all-white with black wingtips bird (spectacular in flight) in the background is an adult. The varying-degrees-of-gray are youngsters.This is actually one of the most abundant species of waterfowl on the continent, but since we don’t have any…
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Gnatty
The other evening I walked from Sunset Park to Grand Army Plaza, the last half mile through Prospect Park’s Long Meadow, which was surprisingly empty of the usual clutter of bipeds and canines. As I entered the park at 9th Street, past Layette and groom, I saw the horse-chestnuts and buckeyes anticipating conker-fall, and a…
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Magic Hour Bird & Feathers
Some bird identification challenges: A.) Spotted at distance about 45 minutes before sunset in Prospect Park two weeks ago.B.) A single feather found in Green-Wood.C.) Also in Green-Wood sometime later, with quite a few others of its kind. Somebody was plucking.
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Question Mark
There are two comma or anglewing butterflies of the Polygonia genus we see regularly here in NYC. You can tell them apart when their wings are spread, but it’s subtle.But they often perch upright. So the namesake comma mark on the hindwing is the tell-all. Of course, this is hard to see in the field!The…
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Zabulon
Poanes zabulon,the Zabulon Skipper. A male. You really have to get up close and personal to the skippers to tell them apart. And that usually takes some optical enhancement, although if you should find yourself sitting quietly next to a lot of pollinator-magnets they may be too busy to pay you any attention.
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Wood Duck
A female Wood Duck (Aix sponsa) through several layers of wild. There were at least seven on the Pools recently. Two of the males. All the males were out of their harlequin breeding feathers, in eclipse plumage, and looked like abashed clowns who had trashed an orphanage after wiping off the greasepaint. It looks like…
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Maryland Monument Dasher
Two hundred and forty years ago today, the British and their Hessian swine-mercenaries walloped the still-loose conglomeration that was the Continental Army in Brooklyn. There’s a memorial in Prospect Park to the Maryland 400, troops who held the Old Stone House (the existing structure in J. J. Byrne Park is a recreation) down in the…
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Stag Beetle
A Common or Reddish-Brown Stag Beetle (Lucanus capreolus) male who didn’t make it. Found on the sidewalk next to Prospect Park. This specimen is about an inch long. Inhabitants of parks, suburbs, and hardwood forests, they’re mostly nocturnal. They feed on sap; those pincer-like mandibles are used to battle other males for territory. Dudes. A wonderful…
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Backyard and Beyond 