Back to NYC again in late November

Well, coming back to New York after 16 days in Southern California was a bit of a shock. It is not really terribly cold, but chilly enough, and now there is apparently not much brand-new nature for me to see, whereas in California I was photographing at least one new lifer every day.

Yesterday Ed and I went to Central Park. First we got out at 102nd Street and 5th Avenue, in order to walk across to the Butterfly Gardens and find out whether there were any insects at all there, and then briefly we went over to the English Garden of the Conservatory Gardens.

I was hoping to get a sense for exactly where we are now in the fall season.

Plenty of plants are looking happy still, and some plant pathogens, but the only insects I could find in the butterfly gardens were one Large Milkweed Bug and a bunch of Oleander Aphids sitting on an old milkweed stem. I also saw something like a bluebottle fly flying, but I was not able to photograph it. There were, however, several pretty little Ruby-Crowned Kinglets flitting around in the largest of the butterfly gardens.

When I gave up searching the Butterfly Gardens and walked over to the Conservatory Garden, I discovered that all of the annuals in the English Garden had been pulled out already. And because the stairs and paths in the French Garden have been under construction for many months now, the staff had not planted any Korean Chrysanthemums there this year. This was sad, because if the Korean Chrysanthemums were there, they would still be in flower, and the nectar and pollen would be attracting countless flying insects, as they have done every year for the last several years, much to my delight. It is wonderful to be able to see so many different flying insects so late in the year. Hopefully I will be able to do that next year.

Posted on November 20, 2023 10:10 PM by susanhewitt