Field guides to specific urban neighborhoods? When Leslie Day’s new book Field Guide to the Neighborhood Birds of New York City is published by Johns Hopkins University Press, then yes, there will be – one.
Building on the paradigm of a regional general natural history field guide that Kaufman originally originally established in the Kaufman Field Guide to Nature of New England, this second volume in the series takes up the flora and fauna of – as well as the geology, climate, and night sky as seen from – Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.
Of all the creatures exemplifying Batesian mimicry, few are better known to naturalists than hoverflies. Looking for all they’re worth like bees or wasps, these harmless and beautiful little members of the diptera are fascinating subjects of study.
Unlike birds, which are generally more difficult to correctly identify than to find, mammals are often quite the opposite. Indeed, given their tendency toward nocturnal activity, sometimes even knowing where to look is a bit of a conundrum.