Insect Year in Review 2021

Observing the diversity of life that coexists in one place is one of the rewards of visiting the same natural area over a long period of time. My garden not only offers myself and passersby such an observatory. It's also a laboratory in which I can research how insects engage with their environment - both biotic and abiotic - and imagine, design, and create habitat to better provide for their needs.

I use iNaturalist to document the diversity of life in my garden. Although I only posted my first iNaturalist Observation in 2017, my garden Observations now span more than a decade. As of this year, I've documented over 400 insect species making use of my garden.

This biodiversity, and my documentation of it, is intentional. And although all of this is by design, all I can do is uncover the latent urban biodiversity in and around my garden. Each new species I find is a surprise to me.

City Nature Challenge 2018

The "weedy" remnants of my front lawn, where Viola sororia, common blue violet, has taken charge. Easily overlooked, it seeds itself readily without any help from me (or any other gardener). Yet this species is native to New York City. It's one of my iNaturalist observations from my garden for this year's City Nature Challenge.

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Today, Sunday, April 29th, is day 3 of the global City Nature Challenge, which continues into tomorrow. Building on the explosive popularity of iNaturalist as a platform for observations, this gamified bioblitz pits cities against each other, to see which can identify more taxa of living species in a 96-hour period.

NYC is currently is 6th place globally, and 4th nationally. There are still plenty of opportunities to join special events organized for New York City, with events in 4 of our 5 boroughs today, and more tomorrow.

I wasn't able to take part in yesterday's festivities. This weekend, I have to get my garden ready for this season's garden tours. Armed with only my phone, I kept an eye out for anything I might see, uncover, or unearth. I was rewarded.

An Elegy for Biophilia

I was moved to write this by a short missive from Reverend Billy:

When I go to pray, which is sometimes difficult being so without any god, I think of that time in my life, because the natural world was overwhelming the god that my family insisted was all-powerful and all-knowing. Creation was overwhelming the Creator and it came in the form of undulating prairie grasses.

Post by Reverend Billy And The Stop Shopping Gospel Choir.

I was raised in temperate and tropical suburbia. Even in those landscapes, the woods in the backyard, or the palmetto swamp at the end of the road or the canal, drew me to them. They were my expanse. Yet, compared to what existed before the forests were razed and the swamps drained, the landscapes of my childhood were impoverished.

The shifting baseline degrades further. More than half the world now lives in cities, with less ready access to nature than ever before in the history of our species. Biodiversity is an environmental justice issue.

I've chosen to live my adult live in a city. Even here, those childhood experiences guide me. I garden because it connects me to nature, it nourishes me. The beauty I invite is not of my making, but larger, deeper, and older than I can comprehend.

I believe it everyone's right to have that connection for themselves. Not only a right, but necessary. Not only for our own health, but to have some hope for the future health of our planet.

That hope, however impoverished, is what keeps me going.

Gardening with the Lepidoptera

Tomorrow, Sunday, June 12, my garden will be opened for its second tour of the season: the Victorian Flatbush House (and Garden!) Tour, to benefit the Flatbush Development Corporation (FDC). Earlier this week, I wrote about the transformation of the garden over the six past years, since we bought our home. Today, I'm providing details about one part of that transformation, one which is easy to replicate on a small scale, even in a tree bed or on a balcony.

After readying my backyard native plant garden for its debut tour for NYC Wildflower Week in May, I decided to complete the requirements to register my garden as a Certified Wildlife Habitat (#141,173) with the National Wildlife Federation. With over 80 species of native plants, I easily met three of the four requirements: shelter, food, and places to raise young. All I lacked was water, a requirement satisfied by placing some birdbaths and a terra-cotta cistern.

On Friday, May 27, I mounted the plaque on the entrance arbor.


The morning after I put out this welcome mat, I saw butterflies visiting a vine in the garden. I was puzzled, since the plant wasn't blooming yet. Closer observation revealed that they were laying eggs on the vine.

Brooklyn's Raccoons in the New York Times

Update 2010.01.03: Removed all links to the old Gowanus Lounge domain, which has since been appropriated by some parasitic commercial site.

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Flatbush Raccoon, June 26, 2008


Last week, I was interviewed by reporter Ann Farmer for the New York Times about my experiences with raccoons. The article is published in today's Times:

Raccoons have long been widespread in New York City, and there is no way to say with any statistical certainty whether there are more now. But Capt. Richard Simon of the Urban Park Rangers, which is part of the city’s Parks Department, said a rise in the number of 311 callers reporting sightings, encounters or interactions suggests that “the citywide population of raccoons has increased.”

One thing seems clear. In the leafy neighborhoods surrounding Brooklyn’s Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery, residents have been flooding the Internet with raccoon stories.
- The City’s Latest Real Estate Fight: Humans Against Raccoons, Ann Farmer, New York Times, July 8, 2008

That pesky Internet! Ms. Farmer cites the Brooklyn blogosphere as one source for the reports:

Chris Kreussling, a computer programmer who lives just south of Prospect Park in Flatbush, posted pictures on his Flatbush Gardener blog recently of several raccoons in his backyard. It elicited a quick round of similar testimonies.

Another Brooklyn blog, the Gowanus Lounge, chronicled multiple raccoon sightings in recent days (link defunct) in Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Windsor Terrace and Red Hook.

When contacted, many bloggers recalled raccoons rooting around in gardens and compost piles, traipsing into children’s wading pools and sometimes rearing up on their hind legs when startled. Many expressed awe at seeing the nocturnal mammals so close.

“People need access to wildlife in urban areas,” Mr. Kreussling said. “I consider it a bonus.”

That last quote is a reference to biophilia, literally "love of life or living systems." I think the way I expressed it in the interview was something like: People need nature around them.

Ms. Farmer also interviewed several of my neighbors. Check out Nelson Ryland's cautionary tale of the hazards of cat doors!

Thanks to my neighbor Brenda of Crazy Stable and Prospect: A Year in the Park for putting Ms. Farmer on the trail!

Related Posts

Rabies in NYC: Facts and Figures
Summer Nights, June 26, 2008
Raccoons

Links

The City’s Latest Real Estate Fight: Humans Against Raccoons, Ann Farmer, New York Times, July 8, 2008

Exploring Biophilia Through a USB Microscope

Tiny Strawberry. Credit: Michaela and Cassandra.


I'm in North Carolina this week, visiting my parents with my sister and nieces. It's a confusing time, with both my nieces and parents demanding both my sister's and my attention. "Which imaginary friend do you want to help me feed?" "Did I show you this?" So I welcome activities which can engage everyone, including me.

For this visit, my father bought an inexpensive USB microscope. I've been thinking about getting one of these myself, so I welcomed the opportunity to play around with one. It also turned an otherwise ordinary trip through the backyard with the nieces into an expedition. We collected samples - "specimens" - along the way, for examination under the microscope. Here are some of the highlights.

Moss and Lichen from a decaying stump. Credit: Xris.


Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis). Credit: Michaela and Cassandra.


Tip of a fern frond (unidentified). Credit: Xris


Diseased Leaf, Credit: Michaela and Cassandra.


Another Diseased Leaf. Credit: Michaela and Cassandra.


Nurtured by our parents, Both my sister and I have a life-long love of nature, and she has clearly nurtured the same in her children. My nieces picked out all these samples. They identified, and I gathered many of the specimens (there was poison ivy about). In a half-hour expedition, we collected about 20 samples, most of which went under the microscope. Much of that half-hour was taken up by observing the wildlife: electric blue damselflies, swallowtail butterflies, a frog, fish, a cardinal, and a rabbit. My nieces each carried their own binoculars. They're 7 and 8 years old.

All the images are snapshots at 10X magnification. This microscope also offers 60X and 200X, but the controls are mushy and it's difficult to hold an image in the narrow field of focus. The software is intuitive; my nieces figured out the controls before I did! My nieces did most of the manipulation of framing and lighting for the images above. I've credited the photos accordingly above. It took me some exploration to figure out how to capture an image and export it to a JPEG for upload. I did some tweaks for image capture, and some post-processing for shadows and contrast.

They're brilliant, sometimes scary-smart, children. It's a privilege to share and explore the world with them.