Stepping into Spring with a spring in your step, or something like that

in spring a young hawk's fancy...

Spring is here! And resident birds are at various stages of family life. Some of the lcal Red-Tailed Hawks were already sitting on eggs by the beginning of April. Others, like the pair above that I ran across one morning in the Ramble, were just getting started on the process.

Great Horned Owls, not big on nest concealment this year

Some birds were even farther along. The Great Horned Owls at the NY Botanical Garden in the Bronx nested in a very prominent place this year and had nestlings by mid-March, who should be about ready to fledge by now

not just one but two adorable slaughterfloofs!

Once the slaughterfloofs are ready to leave the nest, they will flutter down into nearby trees. The parents will feed them there until they can actually fly. The Botanical Garden folks are prepares to rope off the whole area while that's going on.

Jay chillin'

Other residents, like this Blue Jay, will be breeding a bit later in the Spring and are just chilling for now. I've only just started seeing Robins building nests this week, though they've been singing for a month or more.

"Rusty Blackbird" always sounds to me like a baseball player's name from the 1930s

Many birds who spent the winter in the NYC area will be moving north to nest. Rusty Blackbirds were at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx all winter as usual, and are now headingfor their mysterious breeding grounds in somewhere in the boreal forests.

American Wigeon, swim away from me

Our wintering ducks will also be nesting somewhere in the north. THis female American Wigeon spent a good deal of the later winter at Harlem Meer.

male Golden-Crowned Kinglets have the orangey racing stripe on their head

Meanwhile the first spring migrants have started moving through the area. Both kinds of Kinglets have been around, along with Chipping Sparrows. Fox sparrows have basically all left already, and the bulk of Song Sparrows have passed through, though some will stay and nest here.

very confiding Chipping Sparrow behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Phoebes came in in a big rush around the end of March and have also mostly left by now. Still waiting to see the first Pewees and Empidonax flycatchers.

Phoebe, here today gone tomorrow

The first warblers have arrived--Pine, Palm, Yellow-Rumped, and now Black-and-White--but I don't have good photos yet. Also there have been several reports of Yellow-Throated Warblers, which is unusual.

Avoidance tactics

here's looking at you, kid

So I guess I'll just go on blogging about birds as if nothing's happened.

Speaking of avoidance mechanisms, I made my usual trek up to Randall's Island on the day of the NY Marathon. I live east of First Avenue, so if I don't get out of the area before 8:30am on Marathon Sunday, I'm pretty much stuck there until late afternoon unless I walk a couple of miles each way to get in and out of the area.

Song Sparrow watches out

The north end of the island was pretty quiet. The first few Brants have arrived for the winter, and there were a lot of Song Sparrows and Savannah Sparrows. The Song Sparrows were pretty cooperatve.

landscape with Savannah Sparrow

I followed a group of Savannah Sparrows north along the eastern shore. They were a bit less approachable than the Songs.

inclined to fly

I did get a couple of decent photos of them anyway. The usual gulls were around. Mostly Ring-Billeds and mostly distant, but there was a Herring Gull on the rocks on the shore.

curious Herring Gull

There were a few Laughing Gulls in their winter plumage. I don't recall seeing many in the county so late in the year before, though eBird didn't blink at them. I didn't succeed in turning any of them into more unusual species.

who's laughing now?

The little freshwater wetlands across Central Road from Icahn Stadium was also quiet. There were a couple of late migrants: a Black-Throated Blue Warbler skulking around the underbrush, and a Monarch Butterfly in the flower garden just south of the marsh.

Monarch of all et cetera

It looks like they're putting in another water feature in the wetlands area, and also they seem to have completed a bike/pedestrian path just east of the marsh, right outside the wastewater treatment plant. I look forward to seeing what's up back there on a later visit.

Not much was doing at the Little Hell Gate saltmarsh: a few Mallards and one Black Duck, a few sparrows, and along the southern path, several Golden-Crowned Kinglets very active in a tree.

ready for takeoff

In the next tree sat a single tired-looking Ruby Crowned Kinglet.

contemplative Kinglet

Along the River's Edge Garden )between Little Hell Gate and the Ward's Island pedestrian bridge) there were a few more Savannah Sparrows, and one Black Capped Chickadee who scolded me vigorously while feeding.

hungry but talkative

The Marathon was still going when I got back to First Avenue. Up in that area, the crowd was much thinner than in my neighborhood, but there were some spectators.

watching the race

Yet another "Spring is Here" post

So it seems this my my third "Spring is here!" post in a row. Well, what can I say? The first Warblers have arrived!

Pine Warbler, a usual early-spring arrival

I saw my first Pine and Palm Warblers of Spring on Easter morning. The were at the southwest corner of the Great lawn, mostly ignoring the kids playing catch with their dad a few feet away.

Palm Warbler, also a reliable early bird

They did flush into a tree when people strolled by, not noticing them.

There were some Golden-crowned Kinglets there as well, looking very much like animated Easter eggs as they foraged in the grass.

Easter-egg bird

A couple of the Pine Warblers were about the most colorless I've ever seen--very drab even for a fall plumage bird, never mind Spring.

I was hypnotized by their grayness.

I haven't see any Yellow-Rumped warblers yet. Up to a couple of years ago, the Ramble was ankle-deep in them by this time in April. In 2013, there were those terrible Spring storms in the Gulf of Mexico which killed a huge number of early migrants, and the whoel Spring there were string north winds, I think the Yellow-Rumpeds went north inland that year--we hardly saw any in New York. last year they were a little more abundant, but nothing like before.

Anyway, other Spring migrants are arriving apace. The Black-Crowned Night Herons have started coming in; some of them will stay. Here's six of them in two willows--you can play "find the hidden birds".

Landscape with herons

There's been a Common Loon on the Reservoir for about a week, and someone spotted a Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher in the North Woods the other day.
Also, a few Winter birds are still around. I went up to Inwood Hill Park last friday to track down a Horned Grebe reported there by Joe DiCostanzo. I hadn't managed to see a Horned Grebe all winter--they're a normal bird in this region, but not so abundant around Manhattan--, so I was glad to catch this one before it left.

at last!

Anniversary

Monarch Butterfly

To celebrate our anniversary last Saturday, Elena and I went to Central Park.  We got married in the Conservancy Garden, in a downpour; this year, it was bright and sunny, with the North Garden in riotous bloom and a bunch of Monarch Butterflies.

a riot of color

We counted at least nine in the North Garden, and another half-dozen in the rest of the Park.  That's more Monarchs than I've seen in one day in at least three years.  Maybe Monsanto hasn't quite managed to drive them extinct yet.

Before the garden, we walked down Harlem Meer from 110th Street.  A couple of Ruddy Ducks dozed on the Meer, and kinglets, Song Sparrows, and Hermit Thrushes were abundant.  Then we saw this:

Most people wouldn't consider this a good omen for a wedding anniversary. We're different!

First, four Turkey Vultures drifted over the Meer from the northwest.  Minutes later, they were joined by a flock of at least twenty, who kettled up over the North Woods.  I've never seen a big group like that over the Park.

The vultures headed south--I saw a couple of other reports later of a group of 4 followed by 25 farther downtown.

Up on the Mount near the compost area, there were a flock of Chipping Sparrows (I was unable to turn any of them into Clay-Colored Sparrows by simple force of will, alas), and my first Fox Sparrow of the season.

crazy like a Fox Sparrow

On the path back down to the Conservancy Garden were a bunch more Kinglets, mostly Golden-Crowned.

Whaddaya want? I'm busy, here.

Off the Rails

So Thursday evening, I saw reports of a Virginia Rail in the Loch and Ravine area (part of northern Central Park). That's a very good bird for Manhattan. There were two last year--one at the Loch and one downtown near the Federal reserve (!). Before that, eBird has a report of one on the east side in 2008, and two in the Ramble--one in 2007 and one in 1991. And that's all.

So off I went this morning, under a gloomy sky; and up and down the Loch I walked for the next three and a half hours (with a short excursion around the rest of the north end). No Rail. There were other rewards--a Louisiana Waterthrush sashayed into (and back out of) sight a couple of times, and a Merlin soared over the Great Hill when I took a little walkabout there--those were both first of the year for me. A Golden-Crowned Kinglet popped up in front of my--a male, close enough to see the red streak in the middle of the gold crown stripe. I'd never really seen that before.



Still, no Rail. Nobody else had seen it, either. A post on the NYSBirds mailing list suggested that the Rail, if still present, would likely be more active near dusk. So I went home intending to try again later.

It was starting to sprinkle rain when I got back to the park. A few Buffleheads and a single Great Egret were at the Pool. In the Loch, still no Rail.

In the gathering gloom, birds began to sing: Cardinals, Robins, White-Throated Sparrows. Flickers called. Suddenly, from across the stream, a long, high song above the rest.

a cascade of trills
cuts through the rainy gloaming
--a Winter Wren sings


The wren (also a first of year bird for me) never appeared. Neither did the Virginia Rail. The rain got harder as darkness fell. I went home. There were still Buffleheads diving in the Pool as I passed on my way out.