Welcome to the Urban Naturalist Homepage
Introduction
Hi, I'm Walter H. Laufer, the urban naturalist.
Urban naturalist? Isn’t that an oxymoron?
But wildness doesn’t require wilderness. Wildness is where you find it. It is the expected and the serendipitous, the commonplace and the ordinary out of place or time. It is the rainbow colored patches in an overcast sky, the half dozen waterfowl seen just once during migration, the daffodil blooming in the snow, the southern butterfly in northern climes, the spider vibrating its web.
So, come, join in a journey, not through space, for only occasionally do we leave the Greenwich Village sector of Hudson River Park, but through time, as seasons follow one upon another, some eagerly, some more reluctantly. Expect the unexpected as the jostling seasons occasionally overlap so that buds burst above snow covered ground; migratory songbirds arrive before winter resident waterfowl depart; and mirages distort the bridges of the upper bay while sundogs still color the clouds
And from April to November explore the world of butterflies: sulphurs and whites, Ladies and Admirals, swallowtails and Question Marks, blues and skippers and Monarchs. Investigate the flying and feeding and basking and mating behavior. Observe caterpillars and mantids and dragonflies and hummingbird moths, all inhabitants of the butterflies’domain.
Get your backpack, binoculars, camera, snacks, and water, and let’s go for a walk along the river.
Hudson River Park
Hudson River Park
On the landward side, running between a bikeway along West Street and the Hudson River, are a series of lawns edged with flowers, shrubs, and trees, and paralleled by a walkway at the river’s edge.
A small display garden, containing flowers and shrubs, is situated near the landward ends of the piers. Butterfly Bushes (Buddleia davidii) are located in the garden and at intervals along the walkway.
On the river side, there are old pilings and newly built piers with grass, artificial and real, and groves of trees.
Contents
Butterflies of Hudson River Park
Photos of butterflies seen in Hudson River Park between June 2005 and the present.
Blues
Photos of butterflies of the Blue subfamily of the Gossamer-winged Butterfly family Butterfly text adapted from Butterflies of North America by Jim P. Brock and Kenn Kaufman (Houghton Mifflin Company, New York 2003) and Eyewitness Handbook of Butterflies and Moths by David Carter (DK Publishing, Inc., New York 1992).
Sulphurs
Photos of butterflies of the White and Sulphur Butterfly family
Butterflies of Big Sky Country
Photos of August butterflies of southwestern Montana
Atmospheric Phenomena
Photos of sundogs, halos, and arcs.
