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

A delicious birding Sunday

Sunday unexpectedly turned into one of those rare days of Spring migration where you see amazing things. I hadn't been expecting much--very light winds had kept migration numbers down for several days--and the morning started with an uneventful stroll along the south side of Turtle Pond to Belvedere Castle. But when I descended into the Ramble, I found a hundred or more birders between the Humming Tombstone and the west side of Tupelo Meadow, all staring high into the trees.

In the next half-hour or so, I saw (and heard singing) a White-Eyed Vireo

White-Eyed Vireo

and also a singing Yellow-Throated Vireo--and both of those species can be hard to get in New York City--

Yellow-Throated Vireo

and several Warblers, including Black-Throated Blue, Black-and-White, and Nashville.

Nashville Warbler

Nashville Warblers aren't rare, exactly, but aren't all that easy to find.

I took a little break on a bench south of Tupelo Meadow, and watched a Titmouse and a Brown-Headed Cowbird poking around a mud puddle. On a snag above the puddle, a male Downy Woodpecker was digging out a nest-hole, sawdust flying everywhere. Then the female of the pair came around and I got to see them mating, which (like everything else about Downys) was adorable.

Out on the Point I saw my first-of-season Blackpoll Warbler--a bit early for them--and another White-Eyed Vireo, this one extremely confiding, spending several minutes at about eye level only a few feet from the path.

A couple of good birds had left the Tupelo frenzy before I got there--Blue-Winged Warbler and Blackburnian Warbler. Someone told me that a Blue-Winged was near the Rustic Shelter, and I eventually found it there.

Blue-Winged Warbler

My first Common Yellowthroat of the season was there as well--a little late for a first sighting of that warbler.

A couple of rumors of the Blackburnian didn't pan out, and in mid-afternoon I was sitting on a bench at Evodia, watching the feeders and chatting with other birders. Adrian Burke's phone buzzed with an alert. "Blackburnian now in pine south side of Turtle Pond", he read out. "OK, see you all later." He left, followed closely by several of us.

Blackburnian Wabler

The flame-throat was indeed there, and Adrian did a great job getting everyone on the bird. The cherry on top of the birding Sunday was when he spotted a Red-Breasted Nuthatch going through the trees. That's shockingly late, like six weeks late, for a Red-Breasted to be hanging around this far south, but the bird's head pattern (black line through the eye, and while stripe over it) was unmistakable.

The nuthatch disappeared to the east very quickly; I think I was the only other birder who got a look at it. Normally I'd have followed it to try to get a better look and a photo, but I was so transfixed by the Blackburnian that I didn't.

Tweeting about birds

Twitter has made it a lot easier to find good birds in Manhattan. Birders are naturally helpful, but before the digital age, helping was done retailretail--telling one person at a time where the birds are. Things began to change in the 1990s with mailing lists, and in the last couple of years there's been an explosion of text alert systems and Twitter use. The #birdcp hashtag is widely used by Manhattan birders now.

Saturday, as I headed to the park, I saw a #birdcp tweet from Roy Tsao that a Blackburnian Warbler was singing in the elms near Cleopatra's Needle. I wanted to go visit the magic beech tree at nearby Greywacke Arch anyway, so I went there. Roy showed me the tree and described the bird's behavior before going on his way. It was about 25 minutes before the bird showed up--I heard a high tsip-a tsip-a song, and found him well up near the trunk. The photos will need some work, so let me show you one of my older Blackburnian photos instead.

That's what I'm talking about!

The Greywacke area was otherwise pretty quiet, as was Turtle Pond. I was able to show and tell a few people about where the Blackburnian was. When I saw another tweet, this time about a Common Nighthawk Eric O. had found roosting high up a tree near the High Meadow in the North Woods, off I went.

One problem was, I didn't know where the High Meadow is. I don't think it's called that on any map. But Karen Fung (who had tweeted the report) was able to give me directions on Twitter, and when I neared the area, another helpful birder pointed me to the right place to stand to see the Nighthawk.

Common Nighthawk, chillin'

The Common Nighthawk is my 159th species in New York County this year.

A Magic Tree

Sometimes a tree becomes a "magic tree", filled with birds (especially warblers). Sometimes this is associated with a termite hatch-out nearby, or some other insect hatch-out, but often not.

Blackburnian Warbler in the magic tree

Today, a big oak tree on the south shore of Turtle Pond became magic for no visible reason. There were at least nine species of warbler in the tree at once, headed by Blackburnian and Cape May Warblers

Cape May Warbler in the magic tree

but also including Nashville, Black-Throated Green, Black-Throated Blue, Yellow, Prairie, Northern Parula, and Black-and-White Warblers.

The Cape May and Blackburnian Warblers (no, I don't know why it's called "Blackburnian" and not "Blackburne's") were new species for the year for me; I also saw my first Gray-Cheeked Thrush and Red-Eyed Vireo of the year, among 46 species for the day. I'm up to 145 on the year in the county; didn't get there until June last year.

I even got a good photo of the Summer Tanager (continuing at the Oven)

On the way out, I spotted a Winter Wren at Evodia, the first I've seen this year (though I heard one in the North Woods).

Cute little ball of feathers

At this point, there are too many birds in town to do a sensible rumors report. The warblers are there, go out and look up.