Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

This past Sunday I was in Tompkins Square Park trying to finalize the tree and lamp post positions on my map of the park. The Red Admiral butterflies migrating through the city at the moment seemed attracted to the colors. I took that as a good sign.
My Tompkins Square Park Tree Identification Project is steadily progressing, though the process is slow as I alone am the project. My latest work in getting the map right is to print out the latest version and take it out to the park to verify that it makes sense from various locations. That is, sitting on benches in this lovely spring weather and drawing corrections on the map until it does makes sense.
Though I haven’t put much up on the blog, I’ve been taking terabytes of photos of the trees this Spring, gathering panoramas around the park as well as grabbing details of the buds, flowers and leaves as they appear on individual trees. Keeping track of what is flowering when, has really helped in my quest to identify all the trees in the park, but you should understand that I was coming from almost total ignorance in tree identification when I started this project last Summer. So at the moment I’m more confident of where the trees are than what species they are. I will probably have a version of the map that I’m willing to put online soon.
Filed under: East Village, Photos- , Insects, Nature, Tompkins Square Park, TSPTIP - by gamma
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Sunday, July 10th, 2011

I took my +4 close-up lens out with me this afternoon. I think it helped. This bee was aprox 3/8 inches.

Looks like a yellow ladybug. aprox 3/16

In the 6th and B Garden.

Boldly marked wasp. Aprox 1 1/8 in. Probably an Eastern Cicada Killer, a wasp non-aggressive to humans.

After stalking all these insects today, this one crawled down the back of my tee shirt as I was crossing Houston Street. I’m afraid my quick grab, before he made it all the way down, injured it. Aprox 1 1/8 in. Beetle not roach, or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.
Filed under: East Village, Photos- , Community Gardens, Insects - by gamma
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Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

A photo for the What is this Bug on Reddit A lovely little shiny green fly posing on flowers in the Sixth and B Garden. He wasn’t spooked at all by getting my lens right on top of him. Approximately 1/4 inch long.
Update: It has been identified as a Condylostylus.
Filed under: East Village, Manhattan, Photos- , Community Gardens, flowers, Insects - by gamma
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Sunday, June 19th, 2011

In the Sixth and B Garden.


Filed under: East Village, Parks, Photos- , Community Gardens, Insects - by gamma
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Sunday, January 16th, 2011

Testing out some new magnifying lenses for my camera. A fly found dead on the window sill, not fresh at all. I had it in a plastic container for years waiting for microscopic exploration.
Filed under: Photos- , Insects - by gamma
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Friday, August 8th, 2008

Testing out the macro capability of my new pocket camera, a Lumix dmc-fs5. I used the camera for the interviews I did for my latest video as well. I’m happy with it.
Filed under: East Village, Photos- , Avenue B, Insects, Nature - by gamma
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