Big weekend

I started my weekend by taking Friday off from work. There had been a lot of rarities reported in Central Park on Thursday--Blue Grosbeak, Red-Headed Woodpecker, both kinds of Cuckoo--but I was responsible adult and went to work.

They were all gone Friday, but I quietly got a total of 49 species anyway. A lot of migrating warblers were in.

I'm on my way

And a lot of resident birds were going about their business--establishing territory

I am wren, hear me roar

bathing

Orchard Oriole and a Yellow-Rumped Warbler at the bird spa

and foraging.

yum!

It was a splendid day. I had 46 species by noon, and then went off to look for the Mourning Warbler seen between Balcony Bridge and Triplets Bridge. I found it--along with dozens of other people--and had some good views, but I spent the rest of the day trying to get a good photo of it. It was too wily for me, though.

Saturday was the Global Big Day, organized by the Cornell Ornithology Lab as a conservation-awareness and fundraising initiative. The idea was to get a lot of people out in the field and see how many species they could see. The Lab hoped to record 4500 of the 10000+ species--they got almost 6000.

But it was a bit slow in New York. I had only twenty species in the Ramble, so I went up to Inwood Hill Park. The tide was rushing in when I arrived, but I was lucky enough to see the previously-reported Greater Yellowlegs

skinny legs and all

which was a life New York City bird for me, and as a bonus there were a pair of Snowy Egrets--

Egrets, I've had a few

--first of the year for me, and a very good bird for Inwood Hill.

Since I was there, I decide to look for the Wild Turkey that had been reported recently, and on the way up the hill I met Nadir Sourigi, a really fine birder who leads walks for Audubon and so on, and we went off to look for her and for Cuckoos. No luck on either, but I highly recommend the experience of birding with someone who's massively better than you. Great fun, as well as instructive and informative.

Sunday was a little brisker in Central Park, and a lovely day for birding as well.

Northern Parula

Blue-Headed Vireo

I'll post more soon.

Cerulean!

Cerulean!

Tuesday night had winds from the west, and as I hoped, that meant that the migratory birds in Central Park mostly stayed put.  So I wasn't surprised when, over breakfast, I saw a note online: "Cerulean refound by Kyu Lee at Bow Bridge".

So off I went, and shortly after I showed up at Bow Bridge, so did The Bird.

Another view of the star attraction

I thought I hadn't gotten any good photos, but these don't look too bad.  It was a good thing that I got there when I did, because the cerulean then disappeared for six hours or so, and when it showed up (at Warbler Rock, maybe a hundred feet northeast of the bridge), it was 'way high up.

The winds look unfavorable for migration again tonight, so we may all get another chance to see the Cerulean tomorrow.

Having gotten a look at the Cerulean, I was free to go off and look for the Prairie Warbler people had been seeing on the Point.  Finding it proved a little more challenging than I expected from the reports, but while I was waiting, I saw a nice Blue-Headed Vireo.

Blue-Headed Vireo, singing: "Here I am! Up in this tree! Don't look at me!"

Eventually the Prairie came out and was very cooperative about posing.

Prairie Warbler, ready for a screen test

Despite the poor winds, some birds did come in--I saw several other Blue-Headed Vireos, many Yellow-Rumped Warblers, and Palm Warblers were just everywhere.

One of the crowd

The Cerulean is a life bird for me (my 199th in New York County), and the prairie is my first of the year, making 106 species for the year.

Snipe success!

Elena and I were having breakfast and deciding where to go today. We had settled on the Ramble, to look for a Bluebird reported there a couple of hours earlier. I checked the NYNYBirds texts web page on my phone, and saw a very recent report from Karen Fung:

W Snipe in the Loch, found by John Wittenberg

I showed the phone to Elena. "Snipe hunt?" I asked.

She considered briefly. "Snipe hunt!" And so off we went to the North End.

It turned out to be easy. We got to the Loch, and found a group of birders. They described where it was hiding in plain sight near a log across the stream. It took some scanning, but I eventually recognized its stripy back, and then it turned its head and the beady eye came into view.

Then it was just a matter of waiting for it to decide to move out into the (relative) open for a photo opportunity. After a few minutes, a Robin walked close by and it moved out and started to forage.

Sweet mystery of Snipe, at last I've found you!

It was interesting to watch the bird moving forward in a crouch, occasionally pausing and probing the mud deeply with its long beak. The probing movement was very smooth and deliberate; a Woodcock probing into leaves is a bit jerky by comparison, for instance. The Snipe is a life bird for me, my 198th species in New York County (and 99th of the year).

We also got an added bonus, a Blue-Headed Vireo, also a first=of-year bird.

Number 100!

We made our way back to the Ramble to look for the Bluebird. No luck, but there were compensations, such as this very cooperative Palm Warbler at Tupelo meadow.

Almost within reach

In all, a beautiful day for birding.