This bird was too big and noisy to miss — about a foot long, and announcing its presence with repeated loud calls of kyeer as it eyeballed a little pile of raisins and peanut bits I had left on a fence post for the cardinals and robins. Although flickers eat mainly insects, they also take […]
Tag: brooklyn
Wreath of Sparrows
Wow — a bunch of European house sparrows, Passer domesticus, gathering grain. Are they in a wheat field? Nope. They are systematically taking apart an autumn wreath on the door of a Brooklyn brownstone. Looks a bit bare on the lower left, doesn’t it? A dozen more sparrows sat the on the steps below, waiting […]
Big City Parrots
My daughter Katie lives in Brooklyn, and I love when I get to visit her. Not only is she a wonderful person in her own right, but also when I’m at her place, I get to eat real New York bagels and see cool urban birds. My favorite is the Monk Parakeet. I often hear […]
Baby Cardinal poses for the camera
Maybe it was the cold windy rain on Sunday, or maybe he’s now old enough to recognize a friend, but the normally elusive baby cardinal that’s been coming to my porch for seeds and has always flown away before when I pointed a camera at him, finally sat still for photos. […]
How Cold Is It?
The cold earth slept below; Above the cold sky shone; And all around, With a chilling sound, From caves of ice and fields of snow The breath of night like death did flow Beneath the sinking moon. The wintry hedge was black; The green grass was not seen; The birds did rest On the bare […]
Neighborhood Hawk
This young red-tailed hawk visited Cadman Plaza Park in Brooklyn Heights on Saturday. It got this head forward alert look whenever a squirrel or dog came near. I’ve seen red-tailed hawks eating squirrels in New York trees before, but not this day. Note the brown striped tail, indicating that it is immature. The famous red […]
Happy New Year!
My creature of the year award for 2015 goes to the neighborhood favorites — Brooklyn’s monk parakeets! The monk parakeet, Myiopsitta monachus, is also called Quaker parrot or parakeet and a few other names. There are colonies of them in Queens and Manhattan and elsewhere in New York City, but my favorite flock lives in […]
Parakeets
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 […]