I stopped by Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn this week to visit the locally famous parakeets. This group flew over and landed by me, sat and squawked for a while, and then flew deeper into the cemetery. Monk parakeets have been around Brooklyn for about forty years; the colony at Green-Wood is one of the largest […]
Author: Julie Feinstein
I am a Collection Manager at the American Museum of Natural History, an author, and a photographer. I live in New York City. I recently published my first popular science book, Field Guide to Urban Wildlife, an illustrated collection of natural history essays about common animals. I update my blog, Urban Wildlife Guide, every Sunday.
Defender of Raisins
One day last week there was a mockingbird perched outside my window in the cold, first thing in the morning. I opened up and threw some raisins on the surface of the snow. The mockingbird was eating when all of a sudden a robin appeared. The robin flew in so close that the mockingbird had […]
Chipping Sparrow
I just spent a week in the pine lands of southern New Jersey. Chipping sparrows there started singing at dawn and kept on until the sun set. I saw dozens of them. This one was gathering material for a nest.
The First Real Day of Spring
One thing signals the start of spring to me — when the white-throated sparrows start to sing. So, according to me, spring started this past Wednesday when I heard the first one right outside my window. Today they were singing all over Brooklyn. The song is distinctive and once you know what it is you […]
Ruddy Turnstone
I see ruddy turnstones in the nicest places — ocean beaches, mud flats, jetties, rocky shores, and boat docks. There are usually a few of them around New York and New Jersey in winter. I saw these in Cape May, New Jersey. They can be found wintering on the coasts of five other continents, too: […]
Ruddy Ducks
Do you know what time ducks wake up? At the quack of dawn! Do you know how to get down off a horse? You don’t get down off a horse, you get down off a duck! A man and a duck are walking outside together. Suddenly the man sees a low flying plane and yells, […]
More Bird Droppings
I wrote about bird droppings a few years ago. Since then, and entirely be accident, I photographed two more birds to add to that group of photos.