Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

St. Helena

  • Rhinoceros!

    I heard a few of the BBC’s History of the World in 100 Objects series on WNYC and later I gobbled up the book. One of the episodes concerned Albrecht Dürer’s famous 1515 print of an Indian rhinoceros. In the episode, I learned that the rhino, Rhinoceros unicornis, a gift to Portugal’s king, had stopped…