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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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]