Monday, April 28, 2014

Migration update

We visited the Cherry Blossom Festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on Sunday. We weren't birding, but did hear a Chipping Sparrow singing near the Eastern Parkway entrance and saw our first-of-year Eastern Kingbird perched in a cherry tree at the Japanese Garden, hawking insects just above the pond surface. We didn't have a chance to chase the Prothonotary Warbler reported in Prospect Park on Saturday.

Meanwhile in Central Park, the expected migrants are moving in. A pair of Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds was seen at Maintenance in the Ramble; an Eastern Kingbird was around the ridge in the North Woods, and a Yellow-Throated Vireo was photographed at the High Meadow and seen in other locations there. Warbling Vireos were spotted in the Ramble, to go with the White-Eyed and Blue-Headed Vireos already present. The season's first Black-Throated Green Warblers, several of them, appeared in the Ramble. Less expected was a Broad-Winged Hawk seen soaring on thermals with the resident Red-Tailed Hawks on the west side.

I'm off to the Bronx to visit my aunts tomorrow, but I hope to bird the Ramble before going up, and to look in at Van Cortlandt Park on the way home.

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