First RWBB of the year

an oldie (3 April 2010): Red-Winged Blackbird calling

I've been sporadically birding in the southwest part of Van Cortlandt Park and a small nearby park called Brust Park, because my aunt is in a nursing home in the vicinity (rehabbing after a hip replacement). So I was in Van Cortlandt in the late afternoon today.

It was pretty quiet. I went up behind the Golf House, but there wasn't anything there but a single Downy Woodpecker. On my way back, I passed a small phragmites marsh south of the Van Cortlandt Mansion. There was a mixed group of sparrows--White-Throated, Junco, one Song--which scattered as a juvenile Cooper's Hawk came out of the marsh and perched low in a tree.

As I left the park, I heard a familiar check-check-SCREEEE call, and scanned the trees. A Red-Winged Blackbird was at the top of one tree; my first of the year. People have been reporting them in Central Park over the past week, but I haven't see any there yet.

Cooper's Hawk and Red-Winged Blackbird make 30 species in the Bronx this year for me. The RWBB is my 72nd species overall this year (that and Tufted Titmouse I've only had in the Bronx this year).