Bird buddies

You don't think of gulls as being companionable, but they'll loaf around together.

Coots--practically the definition of cantankerous--like to just hang out sometimes.

I suppose ducks seem generally more friendly, though you know their private lives are appalling.

Oh, what the heck, here's a couple of more gulls, just chillin'.

Winter doldrums, interrupted by Canvasbacks

Sorry about the long silence. I've been a bit under the weather. I did manage to get up to Inwood Hill Park on Saturday, looking for some Canvasback ducks reported by Nathan O'Reilly. I found two drakes in a little pond in the ice just off the tip of the promontory that helps form the main cove along Spuyten Duyvil Creek.

They were quite contentedly diving for food and preening between dives.

The creek was solid ice starting just west of the little ice-pond. Out on the ice I saw a Great Black-Backed Gull take a partly-eaten fish away from a juvenile Herring Gull. On the shore, a Double-Crested Cormorant rested.

As I watched, snowflakes began drifting down, and then suddenly it was snowing quite heavily. I decided I wasn't quite up to hiking over the hill to get to the Hudson. Still, it was a nice outing.

Crow feast; Northern Flicker; Canvasbacks

Today at Strawberry Field in central Park, I saw three crows fly into a tree. One was carrying what appeared to be a small rat, and set about eating it. One of the others tried half-heartedly to take it away. perhaps I will post a gruesome picture later.

A Flicker had been in the tree when the crows arrived, and split the scene immediately. It took up residence in a sapling nearby and sat there giving alarm cries. As it happens, it was my first Flicker of the year.

Later, I was told of Canvasbacks in the southeast corner of the reservoir. Canvasbacks are rare visitors to the Park, and really to Manhattan in general, so off I went. They were there, two drakes, sleeping peacefully. One woke up briefly when he found himself surrounded by Buffleheads for a moment, and I could see his distinctive sloping profile. But that was a good quarter-hour after sunset, so the photo is not very useful.

That puts me at 57 species in New York County this year.

Chilly day

A blustery day with a storm coming in turned out productive: I picked up some usual species I knew were in Central Park but had missed on New Year's Day (Brown Creeper, Hermit Thrush, American Goldfinch, Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker), plus I got a good view of a Cooper's Hawk dining at Azalea Pond. I believe the entree was a House Sparrow; I will share photos soon.

After a couple of hours, I was going to finish by skimming the south end of the Reservoir and going home, but I looked at the NYSBirds mailing list and saw that Pat Pollock ("Pat in the Hat") had reported a Canvasback (very rare in Manhattan) in the northeast corner of the Reservoir, so I went up there. No Canvasback that I could spot, but there was a Lesser Scaup, which is also a good bird in the park. Another birder spotted something red-headed back on the west side, so back we went; it turned out to be a female Common Merganser, who kindly flew in to give us a better look. (Common Merganser is not common in NYC; almost nothing with "Common" in the name is, except Common Grackle.) By then it was getting very nasty out, so when I worked around to the southeast corner and met a birder who had also not seen the Canvasback, I bailed out.

Anyway, that gets me up to 43 species. I'm told that White-Winged Crossbills sometimes come in after a snowstorm...