Looking back at Spring (part 1)

So how have you all been? Had a good Spring migration? Mine was good, but I didn't have my act together to post about it. Too many photos, too little time. I really need to come up with a better workflow. And now Summer is beginning, and the migration has passed, and it'll be another year before I get to do it again.

Anyway, it was a pretty good migration season. There were a lot of birds, although some of the "normal rarities" didn't show up much--I don't think anyone had a Prothonotary or Cerulean Warbler, for example, not in Central Park, maybe not anywhere in Manhattan.

I never ran into a real "magic tree", but I did have a nice long encounter with a Bay-Breasted Warbler, right where the Belvedere Caste plaza ends and the steps down to the Ramble start.

He foraged in one tree for a good half-hour, frequently at eye-level, and in really good light. I was amazed how his cap glowed in the sunlight.

A Magic Tree

Blackburnian Warbler (male)

Another great phenomenon of migration is the "magic tree". Sometimes, a certain tree will just be full of migrants, especially warblers, for an hour or two, busily feeding and giving great looks to anyone who passes by. Central Park had a Magic Tree on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. It was just off the plaza of Belvedere Castle, and it was something to see.

Bay-Breasted Warbler

I had some of the finest close views of Blackburnian and Bay-Breasted warblers I've ever seen, all in a low honey locust tree in beautiful morning light. A crowd of birders stood only ten or twelve feet from the tree--the birds didn't care.

Blackburnian Warbler (female)

It's not clear to me why certain trees get so popular. There wasn't anything obvious about this one--just an ordinary-looking tree, not especially lush--a little scraggly if anything. But it was in flower and the flowers must have been full of bugs.

The low branches of the tree were basically at eye level, so we got some fairly unusual views of foraging warblers, like the Bay-Breasted above and the Blackburnian below.

In all, I saw ten warbler species in this one small tree: Blackburnian, Bay-Breasted, Blackpoll...

Blackpoll (female)

..an apparent first- spring female Chestnut-Sided:

Magnolia Warbler{

Yellow Warbler:

fie on your "gravity"

...as well as American Redstart, Common Yellowthroat, Black-Throated Blue Warbler and Black-Throated Green Warbler. There were also a couple of Red-Eyed Vireos.

Red-Eyed Vireo

Amazing tree, amazing morning.

there may be a quiz

Sitting still

For me, birding involves tramping all over the place, most of the time. Visit a lot of different locations, see a lot of different birds. Sometimes, though, it's better to sit and wait.

I hadn't seen a Bay-Breasted Warbler this Spring. There had been plenty of sightings, but by the time I got there, the birds were gone. Saturday, I took a rest on a bench at Azalea Pond. Eventually, there was some movement across the pond, up high. A pair of Bay-Breasteds, males it looked like. At last!

I continued resting. One of the birds came down to the tree in front of me and grabbed some lunch.

Bay-Breasted Warbler at luncheon

How about that? Best view of a Bay-Breasted Warbler I ever had. He hung around a few minutes, singing and preening.

indeed, I am a fine-lookin' bird

Sunday, I was intending to walk up to the North Woods (Central Park), starting at West 81st Street, but I wasn't really sure I was up to it. I git into the park, and at the bottom of the path going up Summit Rock, I had a nice view of a Redstart.

a bird with an idea

And then a White-Crowned Sparrow came out, right on the path.

elegant sparrow

He flushed into the bushes whenever someone walked down the hill, but always came back right after.

Then I sat down for a long time at Tanner's Spring. The "spring" is often just a mud puddle, but this day the water was pretty high from the rain the previous night. A lot of birds came down to enjoy it. There was even a Nashville Warbler!

unusually good view of a Nashville

There was a Magnolia Warbler there who seemed to have an unusual amount of testosterone. Not only was he singing, but he was chasing other birds around. I watched him chase a Black-and-White Warbler away from the water several times, and he even want after House Sparrows.

mighty bull warbler

The AIDS walk, going on that day, passed on the drive only a few dozen yards away. They had brass and percussion bands, but the birds didn't seem bothered at all. I watched this Northern Waterthrush calmly work his way around and around the spring while the drums pounded.

cool and collected

All in all, a good weekend for sitting and watching.

Slowdown

The last few days of migration have been much slower. Wednesday I was up in the north end of the park; a tree at the south end of Harlem Meer had nine species of warbler (Magnolia, Yellow, Wilson's, Chestnut-Sided, Black-Throated Blue, Black-Throated Green, Yellow-Rumped, and Blackpoll Warblers, and American Redstart), but that was the busiest spot of the week by a long way. Up at the compost area on the Mount the Solitary Sandpipers were gone, bit I had a nice view of a Lincoln's Sparrow up in a tree.

The find of the day was a female Mourning Warbler near the north end of the Loch. She came hopping out of the vegetation on the east side of the stream and came down to the water's edge, long enough for me to see the complete hood extending onto the breast, bright yellow underparts, and very thin eyering; and then as I tried to get my camera focused, a group of schoolkids came noisily along and the bird flushed to the west side of the stream, well back in the bushes, and I never picked it up again. Neither did anyone else, as far as I know.

A nice bird, but I found it very frustrating. I hate being the only person to see a good bird. I especially hate it when I don't even get a photo. I think I have a good reputation for being a reliable reporter, so when I report something that turns out unfindable and I don't have documentation, it eats at me. You know what they say: "oh, well".

Thursday, I went out a little too early and got rather damp. But there was a White-Crowned Sparrow right on the path at the north end of the meadow north of the King Jagiello ("Poland") monument at the east end of Turtle Pond. Best view of that bird I've ever had.

totally worth getting soaked for

My only new bird of the day was a Bay-Breasted Warbler, up in the big beech tree by Greywacke Arch (which is the underpass under the East Drive at the bottom of that same meadow). That's a fairly hard-to-get bird as well, but at least I have some crappy photos of it. The crappy photos were frankly needed to even ID the bird--it was a terrible view, high in the tree and backlit all to hell and back by the bright overcast sky after the rain stopped.

In the Ramble, an Indigo Bunting sang briefly at Evodia, and a Common Yellowthroat there gave a longer concert.

Common Yellowthroat, tearin' up the stage

and several warblers and a Lincoln's Sparrow were on the Point. One Chestnut-Sided Warbler was especially confiding:

why couldn't I get a shot like this of the Mourning Warbler?

Friday was very slow. I had expected a lot of birds to arrive ahead of the rain, but that didn't happen. We'll see whether good things happen after the storm.