We were very keen to attract as many birds as possible to our garden when we first moved to Broome permanently and water is the obvious first attraction. It’s is quite incredible how fast birds sense fresh water in your garden and you soon have a variety of visitors. Some will come in for a [...]

Yes this is a bird blog and this query is somewhat parochial but sometime this summer a bunch of big palm trees showed up at one of Long Island, New York’s premiere birding destinations, the west end of Jones Beach, and an explanation is seriously lacking.  Jones Beach is way too far north and they [...]

Although the only pine forests found in New Zealand are recent plantations of Northern Hemisphere Pinus species like the Monterey pine, the country does have native conifers. Some of these are found throughout the country, but the most impressive species is found in the north of the island, around the Coromandel and in Northland. This [...]

Why is it that I can wax voluble on the topic of fauna, and yet flora leaves me speechless? Perhaps there is the sense that we animals are in the world, but the blossoms, bushes, and trees around us are the world. Do you feel the same way? Think about it while enjoying on both [...]

Gold is one of the most precious metals on earth.  Wars have been fought for it, empires have fallen for it, and entire populations have moved for it.  That humanity has devoted so much time and energy and so many lives over an inert, inedible, malleable, metallic substance will surely, someday, be seen as the [...]

The absurdly strong storm system that moved through New York City on Thursday evening left a swath of destruction in its wake.  According to the National Weather Service there were two tornadoes, one in Park Slope Brooklyn, and one in Flushing, Queens, and a macroburst that blasted Middle Village and Forest Hills, Queens.  That last [...]

Of course the saying is “April showers bring May flowers” but the volume of rain we had back at the beginning of the month is really paying off here in Queens, NY, with amazing flowers everywhere.  Maybe I’m just paying more attention (taking more time to smell the flowers so to speak) but it seems [...]

A recent trip to Jamaica Bay in the wind and cold was not very birdy and what birds I did see were mostly frantically feeding on whatever they could find.  A large flock of European Starlings Sturnus vulgaris was no exception and I watched and digiscoped quite a few starlings feeding on Winged Sumac Rhus [...]

Folks might remember that last year I did what I grandly called an Anti-Global Warming Big Year, the idea of which was was to see as many species as possible while burning as little carbon as possible.  To offset the carbon dioxide released from a flight to California and back from my home base in [...]

During the two days spent out in the steppe in Kazakhstan I couldn’t help but notice the sheer number of flowers that dotted the grassy steppe.  It seemed that anywhere one looked some kind of flower, whether it was an iris, a tulip, or something else, was blooming.  So when we were on our way [...]

I love plants. You do too, whether you’re in touch with your vegephilia or not. Everything you eat or smoke and practically everything you drape on your body or put in your car to make it go derives directoy or indirectly from the vegetable kingdom. Plants are part and parcel of our environment. In fact, [...]

Way back when I started my Anti-Global Warming Big Year I decided that if I flew somewhere and stayed there for more than a couple of days I could count the birds I saw there provided I offsetted the carbon that the flight produced.  So I counted a bunch of birds in California that I [...]

When I was upstate this past weekend my Aunt Bonnie mentioned that she had come across a couple Jack in the Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) in the woods near her house. I was intrigued as it had been years since I had seen one and they are such cool-looking plants, named for their likeness to a [...]

If you are a person who reads this blog regularly you know that I recently moved to Queens and spend quite a bit of my spare time in Forest Park. It is near my apartment, it is beautiful, and it is a great place to see birds. Beyond that though, it is as near to [...]

This year, like most years, my father planted some Moonflowers (Ipomoea alba), hoping they would grow up the cedar trellises, built by my late grandfather, that stand against the railing on my folks’ back porch. And, unlike most years, he’s had a bumper crop of the giant, fragrant, nocturnal blossoms, topping out at 15 in [...]

Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriacea) is an easily recognizable plant with a range that encompasses virtually all of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. It is one of over 140 species of milkweed, the genus Asclepias. Its common name comes from the white fluid released when the plant is harmed, and the scientific name derives [...]