Staten Island
-
Raptor Wednesday
Ran into a family of four Bald Eagles at Mt. Loretto on Staten Island. Haliaeetus leucocephalus: this is one of this year’s youngsters. The white head and tail feathers come in fully by age 4 or so. The bird was making a racket, calling its parents for food. Big, but still learning. An adult flew…
-
Some Birds
House Wren. Looks like they were nesting in this old snag.Brown-headed Cowbird male. The female was nearby. Sign. Look up:Robins; late or second brood. I usually only catch Little Blue Herons distantly, passing overhead at Jamaica Bay or bobbing distantly about in the marshes there. This one was hunting on Spring Pond in Blue Heron…
-
How Great?
The Great Egret, Ardea alba.Working it.And another. Black toes, yellow bill. White plumes once worth so much the birds were almost slaughtered to extinction.
-
Nymphs, Satyrs, Buckeyes, Monarchs
Common Wood-nymph (Cercyonis pegala). Little Wood-satyr (Megisto cymela).(One of the eyespot patterns is torn.)Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia).Monarch (Danaus plexippus). All spotted earlier this month at Mount Loretto State Unique Area. The Little Wood-satyrs are early summer fliers, which probably explains why I’m not too familiar with them. It’s hot out there in the meadows of…
-
Purple Martins
It’s been several years since I last ventured to the Purple Martin colony at Lemon Creek on Staten Island. There are at least half a dozen nests going now. It’s hard to count with all the comings and goings. Also, House Sparrows and European Starlings have taken some of the spaces, adding to the difficulty…
-
Overrun
A tremendous crashing in the wetland thickets to our left brought forth this buck. He leaped into the meadow trailing phragmites from his rack. Note that the animal is tagged [#326?]; looks like this means he was given a vasectomy in an effort to cut Staten Island’s White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) population.This was at Mount…
-
Clearwings
Another critter hard to pin down. This is a Snowberry Clearwing Moth (Hemaris diffinis), named after one of its host plants and, more obviously, those see-through parts of the wings. This was moving quickly between honeysuckle blossoms, another of its caterpillar hosts, and proving hard to capture in the lens. Note that it mimics a…
-
Sassafras
Sassafras albidum drupe on its pedicel. Such sassy colors! This should be eaten by a bird, the single seed within spread elsewhere, hopefully to germinate into one of these lovely three-leaf-type trees. This wonderfully aromatic plant–from the roots to the leaves–was long used by Native Americans for medicinal purposes. It was also one of the…
-
SI Surprise
This time of year, one visits Mt. Loretto Unique Area, a NYS DEC property on Staten Island, for the rich plethora of summer plants and insects, with some good birds thrown into the mix. But as soon as we got out of the car the other day, we noticed two big dark birds in the…
-
Barn Swallow and Others
Finding a swallow isn’t so hard, but finding one taking a breather sure is.Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica) breed in various places in the city; this female was at Bush Terminal, so I’d be willing to bet there’s a nest nearby. A couple of years ago, I watched another pair gathering mud for a nest under…
Backyard and Beyond 