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

More shorebirding at Jamaica Bay

Very cooperative Semipalmated Plover

Shorebird season winds down in September--at least that's how it seems to this novice shorebirder--but I had a nice visit to Jamaica Bay towards the end of the month.

After my misadventures the last time out, I decided to start with the south end of the East Pond, and that worked out well. Coming down the very first trail to the edge of the pond, I was greeted by this...

Dunlin!

A Dunlin! Right in front of me! Several Dunlins, in fact, and my very first. It took me a bit of time to work out what I was seeing, and I wasn't sure until a Finnish birder came along a bit after they (and most of the peeps hanging out with them had flown). He had seen them and confirmed my ID.

a Dunlin with one of the remaining Least Sandpipers

Dunlins are the last of my easy life shorebirds, I think. One thing to notice here is the grey on the shoulders ("scapulars") and upper back. Those are new feathers--these birds were transitioning into their very gray winter plumage. The sharp-looking reddish feathers on the butt are actually very worn, and from the bird's breeding plumage.

Peep numbers were way down from a few weeks before, but there were still some Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers.

Semipalmated Sandpipers.  I really like the way the water blurred on this one

The water level in the pond was quite low and I was able to walk halfway up the east side to the area called "The Raunt". I could have gone farther, but it would have involved some scrambling.

Black-Bellied Plover. Yes, that's right. The belly is only black in breeding plumage.

At the Raunt I had a great close view of a Black-Bellied Sandpiper. There were also a lot of sleepy peeps that I did not try to identify. I was told there was a Baird's Sandpiper in there somewhere, but you can't prove it by me.

Black-Bellied Plover waking up some peeps

Sanderlings, also kind of awake

There was also a Snowy Egret dancing through the shallow water. Many more egrets were on the west shore of the pond.

dancing egret

I saw several Monarch butterflies, which was nice.

Monarch Butterfly contemplating a goose turd. Damn, I'm artistic.

Beside the Dunlins, the highlight was the Semipalmated Plovers, who were mostly at the extreme south end of the pond where I first came in. They were still there when I returned.

Plover pictures, please

I never made it up to the north end of the pond, though I did go past Big John's Pond (completely dry) and the overlook, where I saw a group of American Wigeons and a flyover by a Caspian Tern (immediately identifiable by its huge red bill).

I think that's mostly it for shorebirds for me until Spring.

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.

It's a hard life for a bird, and we're not much help

Sunday, I went to Riverdale to visit my aunts. By the bus stop is a building called "The Arbor", because they cut down dozens of trees to build it. Seriously, every tree on the block. It's a hideous building--the architect thought it would be ever so trendy to give it floor-to ceiling windows, to exploit the excellent views of the henry Hudson Parkway and a church parking lot.

For some reason, nobody wanted to spend several hundred thousand dollars to live in an ugly building with no view in Riverdale, so teh developer went bankrupt and wound up selling the building to Columbia University for cheap, which is unfortunate because otherwise maybe someone would have pulled down the building and tried again.

But there it stands, and of course the floor-to-ceiling windows kill a lot of birds--surprisingly, low rise buildings are the biggest hazard for bird strikes. Intuitively, you'd expect high-rises to kill more, but I guess high rises come into play only during migration.

Anyway I see two or three dead birds a year there, which is a lot since I pass the building at most once a month. Today it was this Downy Woodpecker.

Window-killed Downy Woodpecker, Riverdale (Bronx) NY

Sometimes the follies of people make me angry.

There's an article on Cornell's website about cutting down on bird strikes--note that private homes are the second biggest collision threat to birds--and another one in their "Living Bird" magazine (I think this link leads to a PDF of the article itself).

End of rant, for the moment.

---

On a more pleasant topic, I struck out again on the Collard-Dove on Sunday Afternoon, but I did get a good look at a Raven flying over, not 30 feet away and maybe 15 feet up. Never seen a wild Raven that close before. Enormous bird, just amazing.

In the native plant garden there were a couple of Monarch butterflies.

Monarch Butterfly, stopping only briefly on his territorial rounds

This was a nice surprise considering what a good job we've been doing at making them extinct with Monsanto's help. Sorry, I said I was going to stop ranting. The parks department planted a good deal of milkweed in the native plant garden, and if you have milkweed, you'll get Monarchs. For now, anyway. There's a lot of information on the net about planting milkweed (here's one article--can't vouch for how good it is, since I'm no gardener), and if you are in a position to add it to your garden, every little bit helps.

I also spotted a Hummingbird Moth. I love those.

Hummingbird Moth--look at that curled tongue