Archive for the ‘Staten Island’ Category
Bloomberg Bitten by Groundhog…and His Shadow
Posted in Mammals, Spring, Staten Island, Vertebrates, Winter, tagged bitten, bloomberg, environment, erik baard, groundhog, nature calendar, naturecalendar, new york city, urban ecology on February 2, 2009 | 1 Comment »
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 apple, beach plum, big apple, briermere farm, Bronx, Brooklyn, dumbo, edible, erik baard, fruit, hunters point, indigenous, long island city, Manhattan, native, nature calendar, naturecalendar, new york city, newtown creek, newtown pippin, nyc, Parks, pelham bay, plum, Queens, riverhead, staten, stuyvesant cove, urban ecology, urban environment 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 [...]
Trapped on Jelly World?
Posted in Atlantic Ocean, Bronx, Brooklyn, Crustaceans, Estuary, Fish, Invertebrates, Long Island Sound, Manhattan, New York Harbor, Queens, Recreation, Staten Island, Summer, volunteer, tagged arthritis, carlos suarez, climate change, cnidaria, collagen, dianne saenz, east river, erik baard, florida state university, global warming, gotham strait, hsieh, jelly fish, jellyfish, mayor's volunteer center, nature calendar, naturecalendar, new york city, oceana, peggy, rheumatoid, stephen jay gould, urban ecology, urban environment, vegan, veganism, wren longno, zooplankton on June 26, 2008 | 2 Comments »
by Erik Baard
The Long Island City Community Boathouse hosted a “brunch paddle” from Anable Cove in Hunters Point down to “Dumbo Cove” in Brooklyn Bridge Park. On the way, one participant was surprised, and then reassuringly centered, by a simple encounter:
“Nature sightings started before we even left off when Dan saw a jellyfish bobbling around. [...]
Light, then Heat.
Posted in Astronomy, Atlantic Ocean, Bronx, Brooklyn, Estuary, Fall, Geology, Manhattan, New York Harbor, Queens, Spring, Staten Island, Summer, Water, Weather, Winter, clouds, tagged Astronomy, atmosphere, chaos theory, complexity theory, david grinspoon, denver museum, dog days, erik baard, funky science, heat, heat wave, isothermic, Joe Rao, nature, nature calendar, naturecalendar, new york city, new york times, science, solstice, Summer, sunlight, urban ecology, urban environment, urban heat, USA Today, venus on June 24, 2008 | 1 Comment »
by Erik Baard
A kid waiting to kayak at the Clearwater Festival last Solstice weekend asked me, “If this is the longest day of the year, then why isn’t it the hottest?” It’s a logical question, and I guess a common one. The incomparable Joe Rao addressed it in his New York Times astronomy blurb last [...]
