From The Peopling of New York City

Most of my favorite memories of Staten Island involve the natural beauty of the place. For instance, I created a section of my departmental webpage dedicated to the natural history of the CSI campus and the island when I first came to CSI in 1996. You can see it here: http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/treehugger.html.

And above is one of my favorite pictures taken on the CSI campus: it is of a juvenile muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus) munching on some grass beside the ring road. I had to walk up to him very slowly, but he didn't even seem to be bothered by the flash. I love muskrats in part because we had them in the creek that ran behind the house where I grew up, but also because their tail is shaped like a rudder, and they navigate in the water by swishing it from side-to-side. This little fellow was about the size of a softball, but they can get quite large. There is a sizable colony of muskrats living in the Willowbrook that runs between the Physical Plant and the front gate.

More favorite images of Staten Island!

Favorite Images of Staten Island (click to see larger versions)

Arrowhead in the Loose-Strife Swamp, High Rock Park	A Red-Winged Blackbird at Silver Lake Park	Bracket Tree Fungus, High Rock Park	Chicory Growing in the Verges, CSI	The First Ferns of Spring, Loose-Strife Swamp	High Rock in Winter
Lesser Celandine in the Woods of CSI	Loose-Strife Swamp in Spring	Loose-Strife Swamp in Winter	Oak and Plane Trees at CSI	Lake Orbach and Pouch Camp, High Rock Park	A Skeptical Mallard Hen on the CSI Campus
A Sweetgum Tree in Fall on the CSI Campus	Tulip Tree Blossoms and Ants	A Great Egret at Silver Lake Park	That Same Egret But Closer	That Same Egret Fishing	An Orphaned Raccoon Cub, CSI Campus...
who let me get close...	and who the Public Safety officers rescued...	at great personal risk (note the baton!)...	so she could wait in my office until she could be rescued by a former student, Katherine Mosher Clarke, a wildlife rehabber...	who bathed her...	and dried her...
and made everything better.