Red-banded Hairstreak, Calycopis cecrops
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2007-10-20
This quarter-sized butterfly is only supposed to be a vagrant this far North, but its range has been increasing. I’ve seen it two weekends in a row now in the Botanic Gardens, despite the lateness of the season. It perches on a flower and rubs its wings together in opposite directions, though I’m not sure why. I’ve never seen any other butterfly do this.
Spotted Cucumber Beetle, Diabrotica undecimpunctata
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2007-10-14
These colorful, ladybug-sized beetles can be major crop pests. This is the second one I’ve seen in the area. The first was in Prospect Park a couple of months ago, though I didn’t recognize that one at the time.
Great Egret, Ardea alba
Jackson Park, Chicago, Illinois, 2007-07-28
Painted Lady, Vanessa cardui
Prospect Park, 2007-10-14
I went back to Metrotech early this morning before work to see if the Connecticut Warbler was still around and it was (though once again the first sighting was a false alarm caused by a female Common Yellowthroat.) This time I brought my camera with me. The light wasn’t great, the bird was moving fast when it was visible, and I don’t have a clue about how to adjust the various wheels, knobs, and buttons to account for all this. Nonetheless I did manage one half-decent, clearly identifiable photo of the bird.
I’ve gotten a lot of life birds in Prospect Park, Central Park, Jamaica Bay, and other sites around New York City; but despite working there for ten years, yesterday is the first time I got one in downtown Brooklyn, right in the middle of Metrotech. A Connecticut Warbler, the most elusive of our local warblers, was flitting around in some shrubbery right outside of Rogers Hall at Polytechnic University where I teach.
No pictures yet, but it looks a lot like a female Common Yellowthroat, one of which was also present just to confuse things. However the Connecticut Warbler has a more distinct eye ring and much more yellow all the way down its chest to the undertail coverts, not just on its throat. It usually has a hooded look to it, though that wasn’t as apparent on this individual, apparently a first winter female. Still the yellow was missing from the throat, exactly where you’d expect to find it on the Yellowthroat. This individual was also quite a bit fatter and rounder than the Yellowthroat.
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