Sunset Park
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Sunset Park Elm
Another view of the great American Elm in Sunset Park. Two weeks after my first picture.
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Sunset Park Elm
Broader than taller, with a giant limb that trifurcates into prongs that sweep down low.
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Instar
Instars are the stages between successive molts of some arthropod species. The word is from the Latin and means likeness or form. Because arthropods are covered in a hard shell, the exoskeleton, they must shed this to grow larger. Ecdysis is the scientific term for this shedding. That cigar-chomping wag H.L. Mencken coined the term…
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Lordly Peregrine, Part II, or What the Hey?
Saturday morning, I noticed something on top of St. Michael’s cross. Was it a dead bird, prey of the Peregrine perching there the night before? A slightly closer view from the flank of Sunset Park itself, with no intervening window. (Getting closer to the actual building means descending the hill and losing the overview as…
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Lordly Peregrine
Since moving to Sunset Park in late August, I’ve kept an eye out for birds on the top of the local landmark, St. Michael’s RC Church on 4th Avenue at 42nd. The cross on the steeple seems like a perfect perch for raptors, making them the lord of all they survey. For until this century,…
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Weeper
The amazing thing about this city is how every single block is different. Architecturally, socio-economically, you name it, you never know what you will discover. This goes for the plants and animals, too. Parallel, almost back-to-back, in fact, to the block with the giant American Elm is this big, shaggy Willow (Salix). Another great yard…
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Revisiting a Gentle Giant
Back in May we stumbled upon this magnificent American Elm yard tree in Sunset Park. Yes, it’s growing from the yard, not the sidewalk. It pretty much is the yard of this three-story row house. I walked by the other day. Still there, still too big to fit into my camera.
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Diggers
Digger wasps (Scolia dubia) hide their lights under their dark blue-black wings. “Blue-winged Wasp” is another common name for them.A bunch of these were looping over a strip of dirt on the edge of First Avenue at 41st, rather industrial ground for natural history, except for the feral cats and Paulownia and Ailanthus trees. But…
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Ant Farm
Ants herding a flock of aphids. The ants protect the aphids from other predators and harvest the aphids’ sweet honeydew for themselves. The aphids go about their business sucking plant juices. Just another day in Brooklyn.
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Great Wall Addendum
Leopard Slugs (Limax maximus). An introduced species, thinking about making more of themselves. And what a process that is!
Backyard and Beyond 