by Erik Baard
Last night I saw my first mosquito of the season, flying into my bedroom, hot on my carbon dioxide trail. I lost track of it, but minutes later I heard the soft buzz of menace in my ear. One must never underestimate the dangers of mosquitoes. Emperor Titus was driven made by one [...]
Archive for May, 2008
Save the Mosquitoes!
Posted in Amphibians, Birds, Bronx, Brooklyn, Fish, Fresh Water, Gardens, Insects, Invertebrates, Lakes, Mammals, Manhattan, Parks, Plants, Ponds, Queens, Reptiles, Staten Island, Streams, Summer, Vertebrates, Water, wild eyed, tagged and Ross River fever, antigua sun, b1, Babylonian Talmud, bee watchers, bees, Birds, Bronx, DDT, dengue fever, dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, elephantiasis, Emperor Titus, encephalitis, environmental protection agency, EPA, erik baard, joel kupferman, lobsters, malaria, mosquitoes, mosquitos, nature calendar, new york city, new york times, Paul Hermann Müller, pollinators, Queens, rachel carson, Rift Valley fever, silent spring, Staten Island, temple, urban ecology, urban environment, village voice, vitamin, west nile, yellow fever on May 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
WildWire: May 28-June 4
Posted in Amphibians, Astronomy, Atlantic Ocean, Birds, Bronx, Brooklyn, Crustaceans, Edible Plants, Estuary, Fish, Flowers, Fresh Water, Fungi, Gardens, Geology, Grasses, Insects, Invertebrates, Lakes, Long Island Sound, Mammals, Manhattan, New York Harbor, Parks, Plants, Ponds, Queens, Recreation, Reptiles, Snakes, Spring, Staten Island, Streams, Summer, Trees, Vertebrates, Water, butterflies, tagged american museum of natural history, Astronomy, audubon, bicycling, biking, birding, Birds, blue heron park, bronx river, Brooklyn, butterflies, canoe, canoeing, Central Park, conference house, cuny, cycling, department of parks and recreation, Downtown Boathouse, east river, erik baard, Fish, fort tryon park, fresh kills, gardening, governors island, hayden planetarium, hiking, inwood hill park, kayaking, lic community boathouse, Long Island Sound, Manhattan, manhattanhenge, marine park, naturalist, nature center, neil degrasse tyson, new york city, orchard beach, paddling, Pelham Bay Park, Prospect Park, Queens, safewalk, salt marsh, seining, Staten Island, time's up!, urban ecology, urban environment, urban park rangers, van cortlandt park, walking, wildflowers on May 29, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Editor’s note: Please accept my apologies that some editing and link work must be redone due to a wifi interruption and WordPress/Word glitch. It will be done tonight, but for now you can see the events and most of the needed information.
ALERT! Break out the “sacrificial” champagne. It’s time for Manhattanhenge! Come see the sun [...]
Ridgewood Reservoir Under Threat
Posted in Amphibians, Birds, Edible Plants, Fish, Flowers, Fresh Water, Gardens, Geology, Insects, Invertebrates, Lakes, Mammals, Parks, Plants, Ponds, Queens, Recreation, Trees, butterflies, wild eyed, tagged anthony como, benzo(a)pyrene, betsy gotbaum, biking, Birds, charles ober, citybirder, cuny, cycling, department of environmental conservation, department of health and mental hygiene, department of parks and recreation, district 30, elizabeth crowley, erik baard, habitat, hiking, historic districts council, indigenous, junfeng zhang, natural resources defense council, nature calendar, new york city, new york environmental law project, nyc, nyc audubon, Plants, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, Queens, Recreation, ridgewood reservoir, rob jett, rowing, rutgers, special election, sports, steve nanz, terminal morain, tom ognibene, Trees, urban ecology, urban environment, william crain, xeriscaping, yellow warbler on May 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The graveyard’s a fine and verdant place,
But none, I think, do there play ball or race.
…with apologies to Andrew Marvell
by Erik Baard
City Council District 30 in western Queens boasts some of the widest swaths of green in New York City, but much of that consists of cemeteries. The stony highlands of the terminal moraine [...]
I’m a Black Crappie. C’mon, Stop Laughing!
Posted in Bronx, Brooklyn, Crustaceans, Fall, Fish, Fresh Water, Insects, Invertebrates, Lakes, Parks, Plants, Ponds, Queens, Recreation, Spring, Staten Island, Summer, Vertebrates, Water, tagged black crappie, catch and release, Centrarchidae, clove lake, Crustaceans, department of environmental conservation, Fish, fishing, Insects, kissena, kissena lake, lake, nature calendar, new york city, new york state, northern pike, outdoor, outdoors, pond, Prospect Park, Recreation, silver lake, sunfishes, urban ecology, urban environemtn, van cortlandt park, walleye, wolfe's pond, zooplankton on May 22, 2008 | 2 Comments »
by Erik Baard
This unfortunately named cousin of more celebrated sunfishes might want you to know that its name is derived from “crapet,” a word in the Quebecois dialect of French referring to species of the family Centrarchidae.
If I had my way, I’d just entirely rename the species as black scrappie, because you can’t have [...]
WildWire: May 22-May 28
Posted in Astronomy, Birds, Bronx, Brooklyn, Estuary, Fish, Flowers, Fresh Water, Gardens, Geology, Grasses, Lakes, Manhattan, New York Harbor, Parks, Plants, Ponds, Queens, Recreation, Spring, Staten Island, Streams, Summer, Trees, Vertebrates, Water, tagged 6b garden, Astronomy, audubon, bike month, bike new york, birding, Birds, Bronx, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Bird Club, canoeing, Central Park, community garden, compost, conference house, Downtown Boathouse, erik baard, fort totten, fresh kills, gardening, greenbelt, horseshoe crabs, hudson river, Jamaica Bay, kayaking, Manhattan, nature calendar, nature center, nature walk, new york city, new york tree trust, nyc audubon, nyc park rangers, paddling, park rangers, Parks, partnerships for parks, Pelham Bay Park, Prospect Park, Queens, Ramble, Recreation, sebago canoe club, sherman avenue, Staten Island, street tree, tour de brooklyn, transportation alternatives, Trees, trust for public land, urban ecology, urban environment, volunteerism, wildwire on May 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Wildwire-May22-28
As always we have a ton of FREE things to enjoy outdoors in New York City that put you in direct contact with nature. We hope you get out there, have fun, learn, and love your wild, wild city!
THURSDAY, MAY 22
Horticulture, Brooklyn
Each Thursday at 10AM the “VIPP Crew” tackles crucial horticultural and maintenance work throughout [...]
City Hall to NYC: “Go Wild!”
Posted in Bronx, Brooklyn, Estuary, Gardens, Manhattan, New York Harbor, Parks, Plants, Queens, Recreation, Staten Island, Trees, tagged Amanda Rey, american littoral society, Central Park Conservancy, Citizens Committee for NYC, combined sewer overflows, CSOs, Downtown Boathouse, erik baard, green guerillas, Lower East Side Ecology Center, Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit, Mayor’s Volunteer Center, Million Trees NYC, National Parks Service, new york restoration project, noise pollution, partnerships for parks, planyc, Rocking the Boat, transportation alternatives, United Way of New York City, urban ecology, urban environment on May 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
by Erik Baard
Maybe almost right on the City Hall steps…
Improving our city’s quality of life, education, infrastructure, and physical and mental health all hinge on our ability to break through the concrete and restore wildlife habitat. Mayor Bloomberg’s much-touted PlaNYC aims to do that, but he knows the limits of government. Volunteerism is the only way to meet that [...]
Is Your Universe Half Bright or Half Dimmed?
Posted in Astronomy, Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Parks, Queens, Staten Island, tagged amateur astronomers association, amateur astronomy, Astronomical Journal Letters, Astronomy, astrophysics, cosmic, cristina popescu, dust, erik baard, life, light pollution, max plank institute for nuclear physics, NGC 3628, richard tufts, russell croman, selene ny, sensible and efficient lighting to enhance the nighttim, swinburne university of technology, universe, university central lancashire, urban ecology, urban environment on May 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
by Erik Baard
As New York City sloshes out of another rainy Sunday, let’s take comfort in a new discovery that the universe shines twice as brightly as we’d believed.
Scientists collaborating in Europe and Australia reported in the most recent Astronomical Journal Letters that half of cosmic light is blocked by dust clouds before it [...]
Uncensored WildEyed: Horseshoe Crabs Mating!
Posted in Atlantic Ocean, Birds, Brooklyn, Estuary, Invertebrates, New York Harbor, Parks, Queens, Spring, Staten Island, Summer, Water, wild eyed, tagged american littoral society, audubon society, bioluminescence, dinoflagellates, eggs, erik baard, full moon, horseshoe crabs, Jamaica Bay, klaus schoenwiese, Limulus Amebocyte Lysate, mating, migratory birds, nature calendar, plumb beach, sperm competition, Staten Island, tide, urban ecology, urban environment, wildeyed on May 17, 2008 | 7 Comments »
by Erik Baard
Horseshoe crabs having been laying and fertilizing eggs along our beaches, and the beaches of the continents as they were once assembled, for at least 350 million years and through several global mass extinctions. Somehow they’ve done all this mating without the help of MP3 players stocked with Barry White. A couple of years [...]
