Florida, part 2: more birds

Thanks to the wonders of technology, we got continually notified as our flight home was delayed again and again, so we were able to travel more around the Ft. Lauderdale area. We spent a little time on a narrow strip of beach near a small park (Hugh Taylor Birch State Park), where Adam had frequently gone when he lived nearby. There were Sanderlings dashing in and out of the crashing waves, and Brown Pelicans cruising stately on the high wind.

The Sanderlings were another life bird for me--like the Blue-Winged Teal, I'm sure I've seen them before, but they weren't on my list. Cute little guys.

Anyway, I also got great looks at a lot of birds I had seen before, so I'm going to share a few pictures. This Belted Kingfisher was hovering pretty high over Green Cay. I guess she was grabbing insects from the air? This is one of my better bird-in-flight photos.

Most of the familiar birds we saw were at Green Cay. This Green Heron hinted along a marsh edge only twenty feet or so from the boardwalk.

Soras are usually hard to spot (except the one who was stuck in the Loch in Central Park last Fall). This one was pretty confiding.

Snowy Egrets are usually shyer than this, too. I wonder what about Green Cay made these birds all so confiding?

My first Painted Bunting was the famous Prespect Park (Brooklyn) bird earlier in the winter. In south Florida, they're feeder birds.

There's a feeder off the path between the parking lot and the nature center, which the Buntings liked. I saw my first female painted bunting there. While not as gaudy as the males, they are quite pretty birds. I think they are the only all-green birds in the U.S.

This very friendly Boat-Tailed Grackle hung around the Greek restaurant we stopped at the first day, begging food and singing. The waiter told us the bird would steal sugar packets from the tables.

There were Boat-Tailed Grackles all over Green Cay. Here's a nice close shot of a female.

We saw various warblers, as well. Besides this Palm Warbler (one of several), Yellow-Rumped Warblers were thick in the reeds. There were a few Black-and_White Warblers as well, and along the path from the parking lot I spotted a Prairie Warbler.

And in the last minutes of our second trip to Green Cay, we spotted this Nashville Warbler near the parking lot, a local rarity that had been frequently sighted there this winter.

This Red-Shouldered Hawk was one of two hawk species we spotted in Florida (the other were a juvenile and an adult Marsh Harrier). This Red-Shouldered is quite pale, which apparently is a common color morph in south Florida.

Here's a nice close-up of a Pied-Billed Grebe to round things out. I'll have one more Florida post in a couple of days.

Kingfisher, Randall's Island

I still haven't seen a number of regular winter waterfowl--like Horned Grebe, Common Loon, Greater and Lesser Scaup--so I went up to Randall's Island on Saturday. I didn't have any luck with the waterfowl, but I did have a very nice look at a Belted Kingfisher.

Mister elegant

He was hunting up and down the Bronx Kill--the little neck of water separating Randall's from the Bronx mainland--and at one point hit the water and then came up and hovered a few feet above the water for about 5 seconds.

Hovering over the Bronx Kill

I think he was hoping for a second try at whatever he had just missed. It was interesting to see how his wings looked like a hummingbird's while hovering. Fascinating.

Urban Kingfisher

Earlier in the week in Central Park, I had nice views of some of the resident woodpeckers. Several Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers overwintered, which is a little unusual.

Sapsucker at Evodia

And there's at least one pair of Hairy Woodpeckers around. If it's only one, they range from Greywacke Arch and Tanner's Spring on the east and west sides of the Park, and also all over the Ramble. So there may be two or more pairs.

Hairy Woodpecker at work

Surprises and diversions

Sunday, Elena and I went up to Riverdale to visit my elderly aunts. The bus was stuck in traffic on the Harlem River Drive near Macomb's Dam Bridge. I was looking out the window up at the clear blue sky, and I spotted a hawk, circling up a thermal on straight wings. Its wings were wide and pointed, and dark-bordered, and the bird was light underneath with a thick black subterminal band on the tail--a Broad-Winged Hawk, my 181st species of the year in New York County.

Coming home, we were intending to take the West Side express bus from Riverdale. We had discussed maybe taking a local bus to go to Inwood Hill Park, but decided that we'd rather walk through Central Park and look for the Pine Siskins peopel were reporting at teh Shakespeare Garden. As we walked to the bus stop, no less than 6 local buses passed us. Then I looked at the MTA's handy bus tracking app. There was no bus within an hour of us. We took the seventh local bus instead. Clearly Something wanted us to check out Inwood Hill.

All the sandpipers and plovers were gone from Muscota Marsh. Song and Swamp sparrows were plentiful in the tall grasses, and a single Great Egret hunted in the outgoing tide.

Over in the big cove were many ducks and geese, and a single Kingfisher.

It was a very pleasant interlude, but I'm still not sure why Something sent us all those buses.

Far from the madding crowd, not close enough to the maddening gull

Saturday, after the rain, I was finally able to go out to Randall's Island for the first time in weeks. I was looking for a little orangy bird, Nelson's Sparrow, that had been sighted in the salt marsh on the northern tip of the island. The last report was of three birds on Monday the 6th.

I had no luck with the Nelson's. At the west end of the marsh were many Swamp Sparrows, some Song Sparrows, a few Common Yellowthroats. A hundred or so yards away, at the other end, a group of Savannah Sparrows jumped in and out of the bushes onto the grass and back in.

After a couple of times back and forth along the marsh, I continued around the northeast shore. Three more Savannah Sparrows seemed to follow me around. Sometimes I flushed them, sometimes they flew past me and led me up the shore.

It was quiet. The solitude was wonderful. Almost nobody was ever in sight. two joggers, once, and a man walking a dog.

There is a small hill at the south east end of this area, past the ball fields and jest before the fire department training area. I sat on a bench at the top of the hill for a while. When I want down the hill, a Kestrel flew past me and perched on a lamppost at the top.

industrial Kestrel

Just then, a couple with two dogs started up the hill, the first people I'd seen in an hour. I got my camera ready.

it was time to hunt anyway

I didn't think the Kestrel would care for them. Besides, it was time to hunt. I went back to the salt marsh.

There was still no sign of unusual sparrows. I waited a long time. As I got ready to leave, I scanned the opposite shore of the Bronx Kill, and noticed a rather small, slim gull, much smaller than the Herring and Ring-Billed Gulls nearby.

on shore, left to right:  Herring, mystery gull, Ring-Billed.  In the water, juvenile, probably a Herring

That was interesting. I'm not good at gulls, but I didn't think we had any small white-headed gulls. Maybe it was some kind of tern?

maddening gull

Not a tern surely. Smallish bill, though, and kind of a dark spot behind the eye. I paged through Peterson's. Hmm, maybe a winter-plumaged Bonaparte's? That would be a good bird--a lifer for me, in fact, though not a screaming rarity. Maybe a Laughing Gull, but it seemed much too small--Laughing Gulls are only a little smaller then Ring-Billeds.

The gull moved several times--it didn't care to stay around the bigger gulls. I don't blame it--gulls in general are assholes, though they weren't really bothering the smaller bird.

Eventually, it flew north out of sight around the eastern Bronx shore.

Time to go home. A Kingfisher came out and hunted along the Bronx Kill, and perched near the New York Post plant.

Kingfisher, posted

when I got home, I looked over my many photos of the gull to try to definitely ID it. I had a few of the bird in flight.

...nope.

Drat. Those aren't the wings of a Bonaparte's--they have kind of a white triangle thing going on on the top of the wing, and usually some black on the trailing edge. Laughing Gull. Oh well. A fine afternoon out, anyway.

Randall's Island, Christmas Eve

On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, I made my first trip to Randall's Island, having finally figured out that since I'm not working, it's no more out of my way than anywhere else.

I went to the northern end of the island. It was empty and desolate. A lone man sat on the bench of one of the baseball fields. Once in the almost three hours I was there, a woman rollerbladed past. Otherwise, just me and the birds.

I was greeted by the rattle of a Kingfisher, a female, who perched on the Bronx shore near the bridge and swooped over to the island. (And swooped back, eventually; repeat.) Gulls and pigeons commanded the roof of the New York Post printing plant across the river.

A flock of about a hundred Canada Goose, and nearby about 170 Brant, all rested on the water. The saltmarsh itself was pretty quiet--there were a couple of American Tree Sparrows and a Song Sparrow lurking in the shrubs.

Out in the broad East River, two Double-Crested Cormorants fished, and on a small rock to the north-east, four Great Cormorants rested with three of their smaller cousins. The Great Cormorants are my 175th New York County species of the year.