Local Ecologist

There are gluts of acorns on the ground right now. This year looks like a mast year for oaks--a bumper crop of acorns. Mast is used to describe the fruit of woody plants associated with forests . A mast year refers to the simultaneous, abundant fruit production within a population of trees. How big is a bumper crop compared to non-mast years? Mike Hallworth, Vermont Atlas of Life, quantifies the difference between mast and non-mast years : "During mast years, there may be anywhere between a 3- to 9-fold increase in the amount of nuts and cones." Many of the acorns I observe are the fruits of trees in the red oak group, for example Northern Red Oak ( Quercus rubra ) and Pin Oak ( Q . palustris ). I have seen very few white oak acorns. Oaks in this group include Swamp White Oak ( Q . bicolor ) and White Oak ( Q . alba ). One of the differences between these two groups of oaks is the maturation of their fruit. White oak acorns ripen in the same year the female flowers are ferti

Photo by Mohammad Metri via Unsplash.com Did you read my January post about newsletters for nature lovers ? This post is about some of the podcasts I listen to that focus on plants and the outdoors. I host a podcast,  Your Bird Story , about bird stories and birdwatching in cities. You can listen to it wherever you subscribe to podcasts. Without further ado, here is my list of nature-centric podcasts.  1. In Defense of Plants When In Defense of Plants host, Matt Candeias says, "without further ado," this is my clue to devote my 100% listening attention. This is not hard to do. I am consistently amazed by the plant content Matt and his guests share in their conversation. If you are going to add one a plant podcast to your rotation, make it this one. Oh, there's also an In Defense of Plants blog! 2. This Old Tree Historic trees are full of stories, and Doug Still and his guests uncover them in long-form, monthly episodes. He has an extensive tree people network so you hear

I have written previously about the removal of large trees in Washington Square Park. In 2017,  Washington Square Park Loses Three Canopy Trees ; in 2019,  10 Trees Removed in 2 Years in Washington Square Park ; and in 2020,  Did fill kill a large American linden in Washington Square Park? . This fourth post is a tally of tree removals without replacement in Washington Square Park between 2017 and 2023. I am tracking these removals for a few reasons: (1) commemorate the existence of these trees, (2) canopy loss will affect the park's ecology and micro-climate, and (3) tree removals are not indicated on the NYC Tree Map (not even on the Tree Removal and Stump Removal site). 2017   London Plane Tree, 47 inches and 29 inches Pin Oak, 28 inches Green Ash*, 25 inches Total DBH** loss = 129 inches 2018 Paper Birch, dbh unknown Dawn Redwood, dbh unknown 2019 Northern Red Oak, 23 inches American Sycamore, 33 inches Ailanthus altissima, 30 inches Total DBH loss = 86 inches (A Deodar Cedar

Mural of Hattie Carthan adjacent to 679 Lafayette Avenue I wrote a story for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden about environmental activist Hattie Carthan.  A Southern magnolia, Magnolia grandiflora, still grows in Brooklyn, one of the botanical legacies of African American environmental activist Hattie Carthan. The tree, located at 679 Lafayette Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, was landmarked on May 12, 1970. It had been planted as a seedling, sourced from North Carolina, in 1885. Read "An African American Tree Activist Lived in Brooklyn" at the BBG blog and share the article!

I am documenting the "how's" of how enslaved and free Africans and their descendants made lives and livelihoods, and a new city, out of the historical ecology of Manhattan island. I use two frameworks: "Black ecologies" by Justin Hosbey and J.T. Roane and a "spatial analysis of slavery" by Andrea Mosterman. In this post, I tell a short version of this project in three collages. This first slide tells the story of the creation of New Amsterdam. The "F" on the top map, circa 1639 indicates the "quarter of the company slaves," the company being the Dutch West India Company. I learned about this place from the work of Andrea Mosterman , author of Spaces of Enslavement . The landscape of place denoted by "F" on the 1639 Vingboon Map was a Red Maple Hardwood Swamp and an Oak-Tulip Tree Forest (bottom left). The water source of the swamp was the Saw Mill, a creek named for the milling industry at the location. Enslaved Africans h

Two chickens, two pigs, and huts, Jamaica, William Berryman, loc.gov If you are Jamaican, then you know the proverb in the title of this post. I grew up hearing this idiom in conversations about a person or people who had fallen from grace. It was also used as a warning to be mindful about how you carried yourself in the world. My husband, who is not Jamaican but has heard me talk about "when the chicken is merry, the hawk is near," brought it up when I told him about a recent I am Julie Mango video. In the video, Julie Mango compares what a Jamaican vs others would say about standing on a high balcony . Others talk about the beautiful view, while the Jamaican only points out the potential hazards: falling from the balcony, hurting yourself, dying.  The mode of flogging slaves, J. Hatchard and son, loc.gov After reflecting on this Julie Mango video, I realized that I fight against this cynical and skeptical cultural inclination. I also acknowledge its necessity, borne of his