Wanderings

I'm going to continue catching up in reporting my early-Spring birding, but first a couple of notes about the state of the Spring migration. It's shaping up to be really strong, at least for variety. Some people have had 20-warbler days in Central Park in late April, which is impressive, and even I have managed double-digits (and 19 warblers before May 1, which is a great total for me). If you have any chance at all to get out, do it--there are a lot of birds to see.

Backtracking a few weeks, I went to various places to spice up the March doldrums. A trip to the NY Botanical Garden wasn't too productive, though it did get e my first Pine Warbler of the year, in addition to the curious Chickadee at the top of this post.

Our friend Barbara took us out to Jamaica Bay NWR for an afternoon, our first time there. There were some nice birds about, like Ospreys and American Oystercatchers, but they were mostly too far away for good photos.

There was a big flock of Boat-Tailed Grackles (part of which was in the tree in the photo above). I hadn't realized they were so well-established in the New York area. I saw one at the NY Botanical Garden a few years ago and it was a startlingly rare sighting.

This female Cowbird was roosting in a tree outside the visitors' center, directly above a nest box, which is bad news for some nesting bird.

On a trip out to Roseland NJ for a business meeting, I took a walk at lunchtime around the industrial park we were in. I heard a lot of birds tooting and peeping nearby. I went around a building and found a culvert and a gathering of Killdeers, feeding and flying about. They were all calling constantly, justifying their Latin name of Charadrius vociferus, which loosely translates as "loudmouthed Plover".

As always, look for birds and you'll find birds.

Surprisingly slow

Sunday and Monday were beautiful days, after nights of steady southerly winds; Tuesday came up gloomy and rainy, but again after a night of good winds.

Rainy Day Robin #12

Despite three nights of favorable winds, few migrating birds came into Central Park. There are still Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers, mostly on the Point.

Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher

Ruby-Crowned Kinglets are also still around; the Golden-Crowneds seem to have mostly moved on. There are Pine and Palm Warblers, and a couple of Yellow-Rumped Warblers, but no others; except one report of a Prairie Warbler near Turtle Pond. But I'm told that one of the birding guides played recordings of Prairie Warbler songs "to bring it in closer" until the stressed bird escaped elsewhere.

Swallows are coming in, however; Tree and Northern Rough-Winged Swallows at Turtle Pond on Monday, and today one Tree Swallow and a very small, fluttery, brown swallow that from the size and flight style might be a Bank Swallow. On the other hand, Bank is highly unusual in the park, and they don't tend to travel singly, so perhaps not. I couldn't get my binoculars on it for more than a tenth of a second, so I didn't get any field marks.

At Evodia on Monday I saw an extremely pretty female Red-Winged Blackbird. The females are usually quite reclusive. Unfortunately, a female Brown-Headed Cowbird was hanging around with it. That's not good news.

Soap opera in progress