American Kestrel, Falco sparverius
Brooklyn, NY
2007-12-15
We found this cute little fellow at the Pennsylvania Ave. Landfill on the Kings County Christmas Bird Count today. I hope to post a fuller report soon. Other raptors included Red-tailed Hawk and Short-eared Owl.
I don’t usually carry my cell phone with me, but for some reason I took it with me to lunch today, and it was a good thing I did. Halfway through my pork souvlaki Peter Dorosh texted me with news of a Pine Siskin at the Breeze Hill feeders in Prospect Park. Siskins are regular in the park in the fall but they’re usually only a few each year, and I’d managed to miss them all before now.
When I arrived at the feeders I ran into Rob Jett, who had arrived fifteen minutes earlier and promptly pointed out the bird to me. It immediately became apparent why I had missed it for the last several years: a Pine Siskin looks almost exactly like a winter plumage American Goldfinch, and it was hanging out with maybe ten goldfinches so you had to look close to realize what it was. Rob’s scope helped. The upper back was somewhat striped on the Siskin and more plain on the goldfinches. The bill on the siskin was also thinner than the thick finch bills. However that wasn’t always easy to see.
Nonetheless I’m confident I did have the bird. In the future I’m going to have to pay more attention to the goldfinches in winter. Who knows how many siskins I’ve overlooked in the last four years?
Great Blue Heron, Ardea herodias
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2007-10-21
Great Golden Digger Wasp, Sphex ichneumoneus
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2007-08-18
Let’s finish wasp week with the Great Golden Digger Wasp, one of the larger and more impressive local NYC wasps (though sadly not one of my more impressive photographs. I am looking into improving my camera equipment.) This is actually a very widespread wasp across North America, and is commonly seen in gardens and parks.
The Great Golden Digger is a solitary (non-social) wasp that lays its eggs in burrows in the earth. It’s not very aggressive, but like most wasps will sting if you try to handle it. Adults feed on nectar but prey on other insects to provide food for their young, especially grasshoppers, katydids, and crickets. Thus like many other wasps they’re quite beneficial to gardeners and farmers, and should be left alone when encountered. Don’t bother them and they won’t bother you.
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Northern Paper Wasp, Polistes fuscatus
Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, 2007-09-23
Much less aggressive and problematic than the invasive European cousins from Day 4. Nonetheless getting too close to a nest would be an incredibly stupid thing to do. Like most social wasps they will defend their nests if disturbed. Otherwise they leave humans well enough alone.
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Bald-faced Hornet, Dolichovespula maculata
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2007-08-18
Not really a hornet at all, this species is more closely related to yellowjackets. Like yellowjackets, they are omnivorous and both collect pollen and eat insects, even other wasps.
Although they have a reasonably distinctive appearance in the field, bald-faced hornets are most easily recognized by the large, paper nests they construct in trees. Sometimes these are easier to find when the leaves fall off the trees, but this one has been visible in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens for months now.
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