High up in a Norway maple, along a walkway. Calls sounded like a raptor of some sort or possibly a blue jay. I didn't get a look at the bird.
Please help with ID! Illustration of a small, solitary, vireo sized bird I observed foraging on low branches or the ground for insects in a thicket. It was in close proximity of house sparrows and very tolerant of them. It often fanned its tail out when foraging. I remembered its pattern clearly, but not its main body which is why there are four images with slightly different coloration.
This Locust Borer managed to hold on and not get carried off by the German Yellowjacket who has its own observation at https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/238528323
This observation is about the aphids that live inside the sclerotia of the Ash-tree bolete. I believe these black, somewhat globular structures, that can be seen around the roots of this Green ash tree are the sclerotia. These aphids live in a symbiotic relationship with the bolete, providing the fungus with carbohydrates in exhchange for shelter.
For the observation of the Ash-tree bolete, see:
Some sort of cocoons. The apron has been hung up on the wall for months untouched.
In a tree pit in Bushwick, Brooklyn, among Asiatic Dayflowers.
Four Black vultures staying warm by the smoking chimney. It was a cold morning today, about 20 degrees F.
Growing as a weed in garden bed, in shady soil under planted Rosa carolina thicket.
See also this other nearby specimen, with slight variation on abdomen patterning: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/61231749
The day is never done until you find something beguilingly novel and botch the shot. :[
Chamaesyce maculata, Spotted Spurge, August 2012, Beltsville, Maryland
Hairy Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta). Marine Park, Brooklyn, NY. Open grassy area between Ave U & Lenape Playground, Most plants dispersing seeds, with siliques opening explosively when touched and with valves coiling tightly upwards. Basal leaves small and showing senescence as do whole plants.