The cry carries across the water. A cry reminiscent of a time when hickory-oak forests ran to the river’s edge and meandering streams mixed their sweet waters with the briny waters of the Hudson. The raptor springs from its perch on the side of the building, launching itself into the air. With spread wings and tail it powers itself above the pier, spiraling up over both land and water. To a contemporary human, the ascending bird of prey is an evocative sight, exemplifying a sense of the wild and the free. To a duck, or a pigeon, or any of the passerines, the rising peregrine falcon is an unwelcome sight, so as it climbs, barn swallows in twos and three harass the raptor, only to break off when the falcon achieves cruising altitude. Once there, the soaring peregrine displays its characteristic profile of sharply pointed wings and narrow tail. Then after making several wide circles, the falcon descends rapidly to return to its perch overlooking the river.
Posted at: 03:42 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink
Walking along the edge of the lawn where it adjoins the lilies and the coneflowers, I sometimes see dragonflies cruising over the shrubbery or gliding low over the grass in their continual search for insects to be captured on the wing. The globe skimmers among them often glint golden in the sunlight, as they race back and forth over the greenery. The larger, stockier appearing saddlebags dragonflies, with their black bodies and black patches on the wings close to the body, generally appear dark against the sky, but in certain conditions may give off coppery sparks as they momentarily seem to hover in the sun’s rays. This morning, as I walk beside the green stalks of unopened lilies, a large dragonfly having patches of color on the wings glides over the plants slowly, circles, and hovers, as if preparing to settle on a lily bud. It descends to perch on a stalk growing on a small rise, so that the dragonfly as it lands is about level with my head. My first thought is of the familiar black saddlebags. However, the coloring strikes as not that of a black saddlebags and the behavior differs markedly from the constantly flying black saddlebags, which I have seldom seen perched. Quickly snapping two photos, I move around the dragonfly for a shots from a different angle. Before I can take the photos, the dragonfly lifts off and darts away over the grasses toward the south. So ends my first ever encounter with the Carolina Saddlebags, an uncommon dragonfly in New York City.
Posted at: 04:36 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink
On my way from the south section of Hudson River to the north, I pass Pier 40, a massive 14 acre structure complete with three-story, rectangular building, surrounding open-air playing fields in the center. As I walk by, motion in the sky over a corner of a large, four-story building, across sevens lanes of heavy traffic, attracts my attention. There in the pale blue, sun-washed sky a black bird circles and flies at a second bird, of similar size. As I watch, the crow turns away, leaving the other bird alone. Immediately, I recognize the shape of a raptor, and when the bird spreads its wings to circle, I identify it as a falcon, perhaps a peregrine, by its pointed wings, and narrow tail. The bird flies along the top of the building, until it alights on the arched railing of a metal ladder running up to the roof on the outside wall. Observing the raptor perched on the railing, I note the heavy black sideburns,” that confirm it as peregrine falcon. This is my best view of a peregrine, although several pairs of these birds nest and breed on New York City’s bridges and skyscrapers.
Posted at: 04:30 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink
It is a typical morning on the beach with geese, sleeping or preening, spread from one end to other. In a rare vacant spot, a female gadwall and her four somewhat disheveled offspring stand, tidying themselves up after emerging from the river.
A male goose to one side of the ducks honks at another goose down the beach on the other side of them. The gander stretches his neck, bobs his head, and honks again, in a threat display aimed at the other goose. Becoming more agitated, the gander opens his wings and runs across the beach toward the goose that has upset him. His course takes him directly between the female gadwall and her ducklings, causing the mother to retreat toward the river and her offspring to flee in the direction away from the water. The gander literally latches on to his adversary, grabbing him by the throat with his bill. As the geese struggle, flapping their wings, they move to the water’s edge, where the battle continues with much splashing, until the set-upon goose breaks free, to swim away. When the gander turns back toward shore, the female gadwall, a rather small duck, charges the large, male, Canada goose, in a display of maternal devotion. The gander ignores her, but as he walks out of the river, the gadwall charges him once again, and then runs to the ducklings, that she rounds up and hustles into the water, to remove them as far as possible from irate geese.
The gander returns to his place on the beach, where he meets his mate and his offspring, the cause of all the Sturm und Drang. The other goose had approached to close to the young goose, so the father was compelled to defend it, even if it is three-quarters grown. United the family faced down the beach and the three side by side by side, issued threats directed at the offending male’s mate, who stood her ground, answering the challenge. The intensity of the threats diminished slowly, and eventually calm returned to the goose colony.
On my final survey of the beach for this day, I am startled to see three large sleeping goslings that I have not been aware of. Where have they come from? And then at the end of beach, surrounded by geese, lies a female gadwall beside a huddle of six sleeping ducklings. So the four I saw earlier have to be a new brood! Great day in the morning! Where are they all coming from?
On a magnolia leaf I observed the first tiger swallowtail butterfly caterpillar early instar of the year, looking like a bird dropping.
Posted at: 05:06 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink
The second brood of gadwall ducklings remains at six, three days after the first sighting.
Only the female tended them today as they swarmed among the pilings gobbling algae. She appeared to pretty much have an eye on them all, even as they swam in different directions.
Walking past a butterflybush a colorful insect, orange with rosettes of black and white, catches my eye. My first reaction is what kind of beetle is that? However, as I focus on the insect to get a photo, I think it is more moth than beetle. But what kind of daylight moth feeding on nectar could it be?
A tropical moth whose larva feeds on the paradise tree in Central America, and whose larva switched to an introduced tree in the same genus, the tree-of-heaven, or ailanthus, in North America; that is what it is.
A second brood of gadwall ducklings appeared this morning north of Pier 54. Speeding northward a pair of adult gadwalls sheparded six quite small ducklings along the river wall before turning western into the pile field. All were actively feeding on algae as they swam by.
Posted at: 09:19 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink
ducklings
