Some Birds of Green-Wood Cemetery

So many things have changed in the past year or so. When work-from-home first started, we were cheery and bright eyed. I started a slack group to encourage people to do some physical activity mid-day, to make up for the lack of commute. We dutifully went to the store as little as possible, cooking new things at home to make our groceries stretch. Saved masks for the health care workers, then bought our own as guidance changed. At some point we slipped from the ‘hopeful for a return to normal’ era to the ‘ambulance' era. Anyone who stayed in NYC will know what I mean. When you paused your conversations for the sirens and everyone looked a bit hollow eyed. With no end in sight, the company I freelance most for cut back. Last-in-first-out meant that our small team was slashed back. Our cheery slack reminder to ‘get some exercise in’ was now blasting to an empty room. My hours got cut, yet still I was one of the lucky ones who wasn’t just crossed off completely. Suddenly I found myself with days off that I had no idea what to do with.

Where we live in Brooklyn is a sort of strange place. We’re close to the trains so it’s a short commute into Manhattan. We can walk easily to either Red Hook or slightly longer to downtown Brooklyn. We’re technically ‘blocks’ away from Prospect Park, but we’re down the hill so it’s not a super fun jaunt. We’re surrounded by warehouses and sanitation trucks, and right by an entrance to the BQE, escaping the city seems mostly feasible at least until you turn the corner and see the bridge traffic. But best of all, at least for the purposes of this write-up, we’re a short bike ride away from Historic Green-Wood Cemetery. Pre-pandemic I knew it as a great place to catch some (free) cherry blossoms without the insane crowds of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. In this new world it was a park without crowds, an open space where you could take your mask off and feel the sun. A place with great views and a surprising amount of solitude. Founded in 1838, there are 478 acres of “hills, valleys, glacial ponds, and paths, throughout which exists one of the largest outdoor collections of nineteenth- and twentieth-century statuary and mausoleums.“ With my camera in tow, I started making it a regular wandering location on my new days off.

Through some fortuitous run-ins and connections over Instagram, I’ve found myself with fantastic birding companions who enthusiastically meet at the gate at 7am to see what we can find. Talya and I barely crossed paths in the before-times, but now we tromp through wet grasses and peer up at trees together. Brad meets me with a coffee in hand (always a coffee in hand!) and teaches me about all the trees and the historic stone work. My sister gamely wakes up, west-coast jet-lagged, to search for what ever feathered friends we can find and experiment with new lenses. I love that I can hop on my bike and be at the entrance in so little time my fit-bit doesn’t even track it as exercise. There’s something really magical about showing up at work at 9am having already captured a little green heron hunting at the edge of the water or en egret politely posing. I still don’t know enough about birds, but I’m starting to learn to identify some by their calls and learn the habits of some frequent guests. With the help of my birding companions we’ve chatted up some far more knowledgeable birders and gotten tips on where to find some fun ones. I’ve fangirl-ed over meeting the guy who really got me inspired to get better at capturing these creatures, Evan.

I’m also just having some amazing moments. While searching for the juvenile green herons nesting near Sylvan Water I was surprised by a huge Blue Heron who just… stared me down. I was late to work that morning because on my way out, I was captivated by a little Green Heron hunting among yellow flowers at the edge of the water. I’ve heard frogs make the strangest screeching noises as they leap into the water and watched egrets jostle each other in the air. All the while - I live in a place with 2.6 million people. And that’s just Brooklyn! We’re the second-most densely populated county in the United States (second to Manhattan). Yet still, less than a mile away I can capture incredible birds and learn about trees and take in stunning monuments. Perhaps one day I’ll even catch a glimpse of Rover, the Bald Eagle who has been known to frequent the cemetery.

I may not always capture the shot I want, birds are fast moving and I’m still learning so much about how to photograph them. But when I get home and load up my camera cards, if there’s even one shot that catches the light just right and gets the eyes just crisp enough… the early morning wake up, dew-wet shoes and bug bites are worth it. What a fantastic place to live near. Fall migration is coming up, and I’m excited to learn about the birds that travel through our little patch of earth.