After millions of years in the air, birds might be a bit insulted that they’re blamed for downing planes when one of these giant metal leviathans hurtles into their flock. I mean, imagine a whale crash landing into your bicycle parade and then complaining of “bike strikes.”
Still, many people have asked for links to learn [...]
Archive for the ‘Queens’ Category
Bird Strikes…Wait, what? Isn’t that a Plane Strike?
Posted in Atlantic Ocean, Birds, Estuary, Manhattan, New York Harbor, Queens, tagged airport, audubon, Birds, birdstrike, calendar, cornell, ecology, environment, erik baard, faa, janis krums, nature, naturecalendar, nyc, schiffner, urban on January 15, 2009 | 7 Comments »
Cute Overload: Cats and Rabbits in Habitat Preserves
Posted in Atlantic Ocean, Birds, Bronx, Brooklyn, Estuary, Mammals, Manhattan, New York Harbor, Parks, Queens, Staten Island, Vertebrates, tagged airport, australia, Birds, cats, conservation, cute overload, cuteoverload, ecology, environment, erik baard, feral, habitat, jfk, kennedy, nature, nature calendar, naturecalendar, neighborhoodcats, nesting, pets, rabbits, urban on January 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
by Erik Baard
Australia is learning that it’s traded one form of “cute overload” for another, and there might be lessons for New York City.
As reported in this article, Australia attacked its cat overpopulation problem in the interest of preserving its indigenous bird species. The trouble is, without the feline predators around, a rabbit population explosion [...]
Much of the East River Book Online for Free!
Posted in Atlantic Ocean, Bronx, Brooklyn, Crustaceans, Edible Plants, Estuary, Fish, Geology, Long Island Sound, Manhattan, New York Harbor, Parks, Queens, Recreation, Vertebrates, Water, fossils, tagged arcardia, bluefish, cordgrass, east river, erik baard, gotham strait, nature, nature calendar, new york city, nyc, richard melnick, spartina, striped bass, thomas jackson, urban ecologu, urban ecology on January 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
A good chunk of the East River book is now online for free! Get some hot cocoa and enjoy?
Out With the Old: NYC Fossils!
Posted in Atlantic Ocean, Bronx, Brooklyn, Crustaceans, Estuary, Fish, Invertebrates, Manhattan, New York Harbor, Parks, Plants, Queens, Recreation, Staten Island, Streams, fossils, wild eyed on December 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
by Erik Baard
He walked up from below the high water mark beside the old seaplane ramp at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn and called out, “That’s it! New York City is done!”
Not comforting words from a man who measures time in mass extinctions. Paleontologist Carl Mehling is one of many native New Yorkers struggling at [...]
Eastern White Pine, the “Great Tree of Peace”
Posted in Atlantic Ocean, Birds, Bronx, Brooklyn, Edible Plants, Fungi, Insects, Invertebrates, Mammals, Manhattan, New York Harbor, Parks, Plants, Queens, Trees, Vertebrates, Winter, volunteer, tagged broad arrow, conifer, eastern white pine, ecology, environment, erik baard, fibonacci, fish and wildlife service, forest, friends of gateway, greater astoria historical society, haiku, haudenosaunee, inwood, iroquois, lic community boathouse, Million Trees NYC, native american, nature calendar, naturecalendar, new york city, parks and recreation, pelham, pilgrim, thoreau, tree planting, Trees, urban, white pine on December 29, 2008 | 1 Comment »
by Erik Baard
Far inland, a wind
lifts fine snow from ancient pines.
Shimmers like sea spray.
I wrote that haiku twenty years ago intending to show the sensual commonality of contrasting locales, pointing toward our shared experiences across superficial cultural divides. Only today, while poking around data piles about pines in this tanenbaum time of year, did I [...]
Heal the Seals! Turtles Too! (Riverhead Foundation Visit)
Posted in Atlantic Ocean, Brooklyn, Estuary, Long Island Sound, Mammals, Manhattan, New York Harbor, Parks, Queens, Staten Island, Vertebrates, Water, Weather, Winter, volunteer, wild eyed, tagged Atlantic Ocean, cold stun, dolphins, ecology, environment, erik baard, Estuary, gowanus canal, injury, Julika Wocial, long island, marine mammal, nature calendar, nature community, naturecalendar, naturecommunity, neena dhamoon, new york, new york city, rehabilitation, rescue, riverhead foundation, Robert DiGiovanni, seal pox, seals, Sofia Theologitis, turtle, urban, volunteer on December 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
by Erik Baard
If a seal falls ill in the Gowanus Canal, a turtle catches an autumnal chill in Montauk, and a dolphin gets marsh bound in the Great South Bay, there’s a good chance they’ll end up as roommates at the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation.
As New York State’s only authorized marine mammal [...]
Dec. 13: Newtown Pippin Apple and Beach Plum Outing!
Posted in Atlantic Ocean, Birds, Bronx, Brooklyn, Edible Plants, Estuary, Flowers, Gardens, Manhattan, New York Harbor, Parks, Plants, Queens, Recreation, Spring, Staten Island, Summer, Trees, butterflies, volunteer, wild eyed, tagged Bronx, Brooklyn, nyc, Manhattan, Parks, newtown creek, erik baard, new york city, nature calendar, beach plum, Queens, long island city, edible, urban ecology, urban environment, indigenous, naturecalendar, pelham bay, newtown pippin, apple, big apple, briermere farm, riverhead, plum, native, fruit, dumbo, stuyvesant cove, hunters point, staten on December 4, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Imagine the sandy shores of Dumbo, Stuyvesant Cove, Hunters Point, South Beach, and Pelham Bay resplendent with bushes full of white blossoms that grow into delicious fruits akin to fat cherries as summer passes. Or seeing trees at City Hall, or in a school playground just inland from the Newtown Creek, heavy with sublimely [...]
Oh, Tree of Heaven! Oh, Ghetto Palm!
Posted in Birds, Bronx, Brooklyn, Flowers, Manhattan, Parks, Plants, Queens, Recreation, Staten Island, Summer, Trees, volunteer, tagged Ailanthus, ambonese, andrew blechman, conference house, edible, erik baard, folk medicine, forest, forestry, ghetoo palm, herbal, invasive, nature calendar, new york, new york city, pigeon, plant, poverty tree, Queens, species, Staten Island, sunnyside, tree of heaven, Trees, urban ecology, urban environment, volunteer, wildman steven brill on July 4, 2008 | 1 Comment »
by Erik Baard
As I walked past the Sunnyside Railyards yesterday I spotted a tree with a crown that each year is generously laden with green-gold pods. It’s rising up from beside the tracks, reaching eye level for strollers on the south side of the overpass. It occurred to me that while I’ve seen this kind [...]
Pigeon Netter Netted!
Posted in Birds, Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Parks, Queens, Recreation, Staten Island, Vertebrates, volunteer, wild eyed, tagged andrew blechman, department of environmental conservation, doe fund, erik baard, extinction, in defense of animals, martha, nature calendar, new york, new york bird club, new york city, new york city pigeon rescue central, passenger, pigeon, pigeon day, rock dove, shooting, tony avella, uft, united federation of teachers, urban ecology, urban environment on July 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
by Erik Baard
One of the stupider “sports” people have come up with is pigeon shooting, where the birds are released from boxes into the line of yahoos’ ready fire. In a 1902 debate over a bill banning the sport from New York, a state senator compared that lack of humanity and sportsman-like behavior to shutting a [...]
Homosexual Garter Snakes: So Not “Gay”
Posted in Bronx, Brooklyn, Fresh Water, Manhattan, Parks, Ponds, Queens, Reptiles, Snakes, Spring, Staten Island, tagged against nature, animals, erik baard, garter, gay, gay pride, homosexual, homosexuality, last chance pond, mating, naturecalendar, new york city, pheromones, Snakes, species, university of oregon, university of oslo, urban ecology, urban environment on June 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
by Erik Baard
Cross-dressers are more often straight than gay, but there’s something irresistibly amusing about the fact that our language paired the words “garter” and “snake” for a species later discovered to be promiscuously homosexual in drag.
Well, at least chemically in drag. Male garter snakes (which live in all five boroughs in a variety of [...]
