Brunch For Everybody!

We weren't the only ones having brunch in Westbury today. The DH spotted this red-tailed hawk from waayy across the parking lot. "Is that a hawk?" he said. It was farther away than this when he saw it; what an eye!

     The bird was pretty wrapped up in his meal, so I was able to get right below it without freaking it out. It took one look to size me up, and dismissed me as unthreatening. (I'm okay with that.)

 

Crafty Acrobats

Their cuteness is the only thing that keeps me from wanting to keeeel them! They are a pox and a scourge, I tell you! For six months, this feeder was one of two I could safely put any kind of seed in without having it nommed-in-no-time by these gorram grey bandits. Now it, too, has fallen to the furry ones, and shall from here on forward be filled exclusively with safflower seed, which is the ONLY thing the squirrels ignore. I don't know why this is, they are elsewise omnivorous: rock-stale bagels, cast-off Doritos, and browning limes are consumed with equal ardor. (I don't begrudge the grubby little vermin any seed that falls on the ground, and the DH always scoops out his rolls and bagels, so they get the nice fresh insides of those, as well as fresh apple cores and whole, wrinkly apples we didn't finish.) Nice fresh safflower seed? They couldn't care less about it, and thank heavens for that! Now I just need to get the local garden centers and pet stores to stock plain safflower as well as those squirrel-friendly mixes. Otherwise, I'll be buying plain safflower online, and that means 50-lb. bags. Oh dear.

Hiding In Plain Sight

Would you look at that? Do you see what's in the seed pod, beside seeds?

I usually cut down the daylilies' flower stalks before they develop seed pods, but the ones I miss have, by mid-October, been dessicated into lacy cups of glossy jet beads, like the ones here. I thought it made a nice image, with the shadow and the contrasting textures, and photographed them two weeks ago. Only now do I see.....the snail. (Make that snails. That's one in the left pod, too!) These guys get everywhere. It's not unusual to see the little critters poised at the end of an eight-foot-long willow branch that must have taken them hours to traverse the length of, from the ground to the very tip where now is being chewed up the tenderest, juiciest new growth. But really, you climbed all the way up the stalk, into the seed pod... Did it eat and fall asleep? Was it attacked by a predator and left there, an empty shell? Went looking for that same stalk and seedhead today, but it's gone; it's been two weeks of rain, wind, leaves falling, sun, rain, etc. So. Something impossible to look out for next year...

Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge

Driving through Broad Channel last month on our way back from an appointment, we passed a sign for the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge and decided to stop in. I'd never been there before, though everyone else I've spoken to since is all "...yeah, of course, all the time...since I was a kid..."

Well, it was new to me. And what a nifty place! Birds birds birds. We only saw a few during our midday visit: swans, egrets, red-winged blackbirds...but there are lots more: ospreys, being brought back from the brink of extinction with the help of custom-built nest platforms like the one I wrote about years ago, and barn owls, who are given barn-sized birdhouses. There are houses erected for smaller bird species, and special ones built for just for bats. Quite spoiled, the lot of them. Here's the big barn-owl boudoir:

The refuge is also home to diamondback terrapins, and many of their nests are right next to the trail, as you can see in the photo below. I can't tell you how long we stood there, marveling at the metalworking capabilities of the turtles, so cleverly protecting their nests, before we realized there was an adult right there, just beyond the cage, watching us! Remarkable creatures.

There are lots of sweeping vistas across the salt marshes, alternating with shady avenues of greenery. In the distance, way beyond the free avian housing, you can see the Empire State Building:

There were lots of insects as well, dragonflies and spiders and bees. And snails, of course.
This guy was in the middle of the path, in the blazing sun. I don't know what he was thinking.

He'll be extinct in no time, behaving this way.

We tried not to startle this tall, exotic specimen:

I was clearly a "casual" visitor, without a great big lens, or even a hat, and felt strangely out of place for not carrying a tripod. Everyone else was fully equipped. The bright sun made it hard (for me) to photograph the flora, but it was there. Much of it, sadly, undesirable, like the Japanese knotweed that was strangling the native yucca in a picturesque, spiralling manner.

If it ever stops raining this summer, I recommend you visit the refuge, which is part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. There's an informative and well-equipped visitor center, the trails are easy for people of all ages and abilities, and it's free. Oh, and bring your camera.

Babies Everywhere

Aside from the birds, about whom I can't shut up, late spring is alive with lots of other little forms of life. Above, you see the cutest little pest ever. Look at that shell, it's transparent! And so exquisitely small, for a sense of scale, consider those huge grooves he's crawling over: those are my fingerprints. Go on, look at your own fingerprints; that's how tiny he is. Ah, but he wants to destroy my vegetation, and so he, along with his many older relatives, was handpicked off the creeping phlox and daylily leaves and sidearmed into the street, where the birds are waiting to make breakfast out of him.

Below, hoping the birds don't make breakfast out of him, is a very young lizard, poking his head out from under the house shingles, where I believe he enjoys the warmth of the sun heating up the shingle. Also, it's very easy to skedaddle up and under and out of harm's way.

Flight Time

As it turns out, that last post on May 30th wasn't the end of the story; the juvenile robins are being raised in the surrounding trees. Every day since the last one left, I've seen one and sometimes two together. Usually I'm tipped off to the location by now-familiar calls-and-responses. For the first couple of days, the young'uns were not very high up in the old bent pine tree, where I took the photo above. See the black-and-white speckling on the red breast? That, and the overall "fluffy" quality, let you know it's a juvenile. (Oh, also the insane cheeping when it's time to eat.) Most interesting is the way the mom encourages them to fly: I saw her tugging worms out of the tomato patch, loading up her beak, then she flew to a branch next to the kids, sat there a few seconds while they raised a racket about the lunch she was holding, then she flew away, higher up into the next tree, and they followed! I guess they'll be trained to find their own worms once they're stronger, swifter flyers, and it's safer for them to be on the ground. Songbirds are much different from baby goslings and ducks, who walk right out of the shell and commence swimming and feeding themselves more or less immediately.

Blue On Blue

After a solid week of rain, unfortunate accidents, and then some very sad news yesterday, it was a balm to see the sun this morning. All the neighborhood birds were on the move, fanning out across the yards looking for food, and chasing one another across the street in midair. From the kitchen window I watched a bird fly into the blue spruce next to the house. It sat there; I could just see its head. It didn't fly out again. This, I discovered, is why:


It's about six feet up in the tree, which is, itself, only seven feet tall. Once again, the vari-angle display on my Canon point-and-shoot was invaluable in obtaining the shot. You can't see the eggs from the ground; I had to hold the camera way above my head and shoot down. Yes, the morning light is harsh around the edges. I'll try to do better next time, if there is a next time. I don't want to scare off the 'rents.

Some Underwater Friends

The pet store we visited last weekend also hosts some dashing saltwater types, like this blood shrimp, lionfish, and friendly hermit crab. So if rooms full of birds creep you out a little, there's a bunch of serene fish tanks to look at instead.

Talk To The Tail!

I scolded this guy for scarfing up the birds' breadcrumbs this morning. He took issue with that. You talkin' to ME?!

I don't see anysquirrel else here, so you must be talkin' to me.

But man, I ain't got time to waste talkin' to you. I'm out.

You Gonna Eat That?

Are those nuts? They look like nuts. In fact, they look like almonds. Are they almonds? Are they your almonds? I don't find almonds around here too often...they look good. Are they good? I bet they're good. I remember having almonds once, and they were good. Sure would be great to have some almonds again sometime, but you know, not much around here but acorns....acorns are okay, of course, but they're not almonds. Once in a while it'd be nice to break up the monotony of...what? oh no, I couldn't, I mean, you shouldn't be encouraging me, I could have rabies...okay maybe just a handful.

Again With The Little Critters!

It feels like the lightning bugs showed up early this year. Not that I'm complaining! They're one of the few bugs I don't mind approaching. They're very patient subjects when seated, as above, but a little harder to capture when aloft and aglow, as below.
Although our backyard wildlife is humble in its variety and lacks exoticism, I am, apparently, easy to fascinate.

Our little lizard colony continues to thrive; can you see that one below, looks like he's laughing at me? I had to hide behind the foliage to take this. Look how cute he is with his mouth open! Actually, he was in the process of swallowing a bug.

And look at this guy, below, why haven't I ever seen one before? Have I just been unobservant all these years?
Leucauge venusta

This beautiful glittery-gold-and-iridescent-green-bodied spider is keeping an immaculate horizontal orb web behind my garage, completely immobilizing my agriculture-recycling bin for the last four days now, but he's so interesting I'm letting him be. How do I know the fancy Latin name for this arachnid? Once again, I found my answer on BugGuide, an active and informed "online community of naturalists." This time, instead of posting a photo of my mystery caterpillar as I did before and waiting for a reply, I used the search box on the main page to bring up photos with the keywords 'green spider', and found a dead match in the thumbnails on the first page of results.

The Littlest Predator

At least, it's smaller than the last predator I wrote about. And it has six more legs! I noticed this fierce little guy on the window screen and figured he was so busy with his lunch he wouldn't mind me taking a few pictures. He's a jumping spider. Quite scary-looking now that I get a good squiz. I was letting the lens do all the brave stuff; I was an arm's length away, naturally. A distant appreciation's what I crave here.

Italian Wall Lizards

I have at least three Italian immigrants living in my backyard. At least, that's as many as I've seen at once. They're quick as lightning, so they're hard to count. But as the sun grows stronger, they come out to bask, and although technically they're an invasive species, so far they cause no harm, carry no parasites, and oh, BTW, they eat my aphids so they're ok by me.

As I say, they're quick, and awfully shy, so you'll have to zoom in on these to get a good look.

Make Way for Ducklings

In this case, make way for just one duckling, the only one observed so far this season along the route I usually take. The duck and her lone young'un were grazing and splashing in the same spot yesterday and today, followed all the while by two drakes who would try time and again to get close, only to have the mama lower her head and charge at one or the other until they backed off. (As you can see here in this video.) But after a bit, they'd be trying again. Drakes don't care what mama don't allow, gonna follow 'round mama anyhow...

Jamaican Wildlife Tour

Yesterday we found ourselves with an hour to kill before starting our evening shifts at the library, and it was such a beautiful day, the DH and I decided to walk up to Captain Tilly Park, on Highland Avenue, next to Jamaica High School. It's a badly-littered nine acres of water, greenery, and playground equipment that nevertheless serves parents and children, lunchers (like the chap in grey above), and even a few runners seeking a breath of air and a place to stretch their legs. The pond needs an aerator to keep down the algae, and unfortunatly, that piece of equipment is, for some reason, moored by two ugly, broken-down, red plastic barrels with the word "danger" unevenly hand-lettered on them in white paint. Despite its visual flaws, the park has a lot of what wildlife wants: water and fallen, rotting tree trunks offering food and shelter. Of course, we brought cameras. (The photo of the monument was taken by Ken.)

Together, We Can...

...all share this log. Yes! The spirit of reptilian brotherhood allows four to bask on a submerged log that might fit only two less cooperative individuals. Or so goes some such anthropomorphic nonsensical imagining on my part as I snap these red-ear sliders basking in Goose Pond. Great name for the pond, by the way. Took a lot of imagination, that did: "Yeah, we can't get rid of these Canada geese no way, no how. They've completely taken over! Might as well name the durned pond after 'em!"

Take A Gander At THESE Babies!

Midway through spring, and it's time to make way for goslings. Canada geese are year-round residents of our cities now, and these were hatched in the park. Still too young to be far from the gimlet eye of their parents, they're already quite sizable, except for comically short wings.

Settled In

The mama bird has been on her nest day and night for six days nows, sometimes facing this way, sometimes that, but always utterly, utterly still.

What Housing Slump?

Only this morning I discovered this modest new construction, snug against the trunk of the backyard pine tree. It's well-camouflaged to the casual passer-by, but only about six and a half feet off the ground, tucked in a hula-girl bend of the trunk. After chasing Fiona away from the bulb plantings underneath it ("back to your perfectly good litter box, thank you very much!") and seeing both mourning doves fly away, I used a stepstool and the indispensable Vari-Angle screen on the Canon to take this shot of the (so far) empty nest from above. Off now to buy a bell for Fiona.

Listen Up, Fowl

It's one thing if you guys are going to start hanging out in my local pond...after all, I'm not lookin' to live there...go ahead. But..but hey..don' be hangin' out in fronna my house like this. Now I'm growing, shall we say, concerned. I live blocks from the water. You might very well scare my cat. Don't be making a habit of this.