Sunset Park
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Roof Crow
A Fish Crow, identified by its vocalizations, patrolling neighboring roofs. For bugs. Crunchy snacks. I believe the prey here is a Common Green June Beetle. Seemed to already dead up there. Crow was scavenging and found several tidbits. Flashbacks: Two years ago, Laughing Gulls were swarming over a bunch of these same beetles at Bush…
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Raptor Wednesday
On Sunday morning, there were five American Kestrels on and off the solar building, which is about one-third of the way down the block from here. Two males, three females. In this pic, there’s a male on the left. There are two females on the chimney, and another female on the far right pipe. On…
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Another Very Special Edition of Raptor Wednesday
I was worried. It’s late June. Shouldn’t I have seen these fledglings sooner? In truth, they don’t look like they came out of the nest yesterday. I suspect they’ve been out and around for a few days now. She scrunches down before lift-off. There was actually a young male up there, too. I’d heard somebody…
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A Very Special Edition of Raptor Wednesday
Yup, it’s Thursday, but yesterday morning an American Kestrel caught my eye because it crossed the bow of the apartment windows and landed in a tree. It was where it landed that was out of the ordinary. Usually, the #BrooklynKestrels pair land up near the top of the tallest London Plane tree bordering the park.…
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Raptor Wednesday
In a London plane tree across the street, the American Kestrel male stashes prey. The nesting kestrels used this same spot two years ago, too. These last two pictures are from the same day, but different caches. Both, obviously, bird. Note that the kestrels will eat their prey’s feet, swallowing with the toes pointed outwards,…
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Here They Come/Here They Come/Here They Come
Yesterday morning the “bronk!” of a raven lifted my eyes to the window. They were passing right over the building. Four of them! Another followed from another angle. Looks like the class of 2020 is on the wing. Two of them landed on St. Michael’s for a brief perch above their domaine. A hour or…
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Raptor Wednesday
The local male American Kestrel. He’s working like a dog now that there must be nestlings in the hole in the cornice where the nest is. These photos, from Sunday morning, document him hunting and eating insects. From the size and color, I’d say roaches or waterbugs that he was grabbing off a couple of…
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Raptor Wednesday
If you crossed Rear Window and The Birds… The local American Kestrels making more little falcons. Copulation lasts about ten seconds. Frequency seems to be key. They’ll do it multiple times a day, totaling hundreds of times over the pre-brooding period.
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Witches’ Broom
A hackberry tree, Celtis occidentalis. Notice the clumpiness in the canopy? A slightly closer view of one fo the clumps. (They were all out of hand’s reach.) This is witches’ broom, a gall-like growth of branches sprouting in multiples. Hackberry is particularly susceptible. In this case, it seems to be caused by a combination of…
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Sunday
For the third year in a row, American Kestrels are in the ‘hood! A male has been around all winter, spotted almost every day. But lately a female has appeared. Copulation was observed on 1/23 on a roof pipe just to the right of this chimney pot. No sign of a female again until this…
Backyard and Beyond 