Catching up

Last Sunday (1/17), I went out to Central Park and caught up on a few birds I hadn't seen in Manhattan this year.

The best thing there were two Snow Geese, a very rare sight in Central Park, even as a flyover much less down on the water.

rare visitors

I have heard that they are still there.

Walking around the Reservoir, I saw the Ring-Necked Duck drake that has been wintering there.

I think this is the first photo I've taken where you can see the ring around the neck

The Reservoir gets one or two Ring-Necked drakes every winter. I wonder if the same bird has been returning every year. He was hunting quite successfully, and I spent some time trying to get a good photo of him at the moment of the dive.

dive!

It was a little beyond my skill, and it was quite windy and cold so I gave up after only ten minutes or so. . This is the best one I got.

Also new for the year at the Reservoir was a Pied-Billed Grebe. We generally have two or three hanging around, but I think only one this winter.

Heading toward the Ramble, I found the Orange-Crowned Warbler that was found during the Christmas Count. It looks like it's trying to overwinter here, which is pretty scary.

it's a living

In this photo, you can see it's probing at sapsucker scrapes on the viburnum (I think that's the plant, anyway). The Orange-Crowned has basically been following an overwintering Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker around, poaching insects from its wells and scrapes.

It is still behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art, though it has moved to the area right up against the East Drive between the Transverse and Greywacke Arch

the hawk gaze

In the Ramble itself, I found this juvenile Accipiter, which I think is a Sharp-Shinned Hawk.

tail looks pretty square to me

On my way out, I was startled by a flash of white wings darting into a mixed flock of sparrows. It turned out to be this partially-leucistic House sparrow. I think a couple of people have remarked on this bird recently.

white wings

It's interesting--the white doesn't look that extensive when the bird is at rest, but in flight it was really startling.

One thing I didn't see that day was the Great Horned Owl which was present from late October to early January, and then disappeared once all the leaves droppped from its favorite roosting tree. It's apparently back! I've seen several reports of it this past week, in the same now-bare tree near the feeder area in the Ramble. I guess it missed the attention.

OPB: Hits and misses

One of the disadvantages of productive employment is that I have less time for birding and wind up chasing birds based on reports I've seen. Other people's Birds, OPB.

Sometimes this works out fine. A bunch of people had seen a Long-tailed Duck at the bridge over the Harlem River at Broadway. So I went up there bright and early on Saturday.

Long-Tailed Duck, what the old-timers still call an Oldsquaw

Very nice-looking drake, hanging out with a female Ring-Necked Duck. On the way home, I went to Central Park. When I got there, I saw a report on-line, only an hour old, of a Scaup on the Reservoir. "Oh, I can do that", I thought. Turned out I couldn't. No Scaup for me. Also no Long-Eared owl, which has been spotted several times in the past few days, originally in the Shakespeare Garden.

That night, I saw reports from Randall's Island, where one observer had seen a bunch of interesting birds--Killdeer, Green-Winged teal, American Wigeon, Common Goldeneye--so that's where I spent Sunday.

pretty close for Common Goldeneyes

The Goldeneye were there, two drakes and a hen, between the south shore and Mill Rock. This was actually the best look I've ever had at them. The drakes were diving, but it was the female who was being harassed by a young Herring Gull. Very strange--normally gulls attack ducks after a dive, when they might be coming up with food. I think maybe this one had a bright idea--"they always come up with food after a dive so if I force one under, I'm perfectly placed to grab it when she comes up." That would be unusually complex reasoning for a gull, even though completely wrong.

Common Goldeneye female, in between annoyances

On the north tip of the island, I failed to find the Wigeon or Teal on the Bronx Kill, but a Killdeer was poking along the mudflats.

Killdeer and American Black Ducks

A pretty good weekend in all. A few more weeks and there'll be some many birds coming in, it will hardly matter when the online reports say. I can do my own hunting.

contented Killdeer

Ha ha! Just kidding. I'll be looking at the reports even more then. Golden-winged Warbler, come on out!

A New Birding Year begins

The year got off to a slowish start for me. Usually, I spend New Year's Day going all over Central Park getting as many ordinary birds as possible along with whatever rarities are around. I do it this way because I use the eBird "year Needs" list, and it's a little annoying to see dozens of "Common Grackle" reports for the first few days of the year.

This year, though, I decided to start by looking for the several rarities I knew were around Manhattan. I started with a swing around the Reservoir, where the three drake Ring-Necked Ducks are still in residence,

ducks in residence

and then went down to the Village for another look at Couch's Kingbird, who put in a quick appearance.

continuing Kingbird

Then I sent up to Hudson River park in Chelsea, where I dipped on my old friend the Eurasian Collared-Dove, who I know is still around. I also didn't see any of the resident Ravens. I decided to to troll Riverside Park looking for the Black-Headed Gull found there by Jacob Drucker. I'm not sure I'd know a Black-Headed Gull if it crapped on me.

Friday and Saturday I was in Central Park, which was a bit sparse. I did have both Sharp-Shinned and Cooper's Hawks at Maintenance on Friday, and the Chipping Sparrow is still maintaining his place at the Evodia feeders against all comers.

Chipping Sparrow tells a Titmouse what's what

Sunday I finally made it up to Randall's Island, where several remarkable birds--Tennessee Warbler! Cackling Goose! Orange-Crowned Warbler! Lesser Black-backed Gull!-- had been reported, but none of them appeared for me. I did see Field Sparrows.

rather late for Field Sparrows

Always a cheerful sight, they were hanging around with a small flock of Juncos and a few House Sparrows, which was working both sides of the Bronx Kill west of the railroad bridge.

And since then, my morning jaunts through the Ramble on my way to the subway have started filling in my species list.

confiding woodpecker

How's your New Birding Year going?

Central Park Christmas Bird Count

I was up at 6:30 this morning and at the south pumphouse of the Central Park Reservoir by 7:45 for the Christmas Bird Count. The count divides the park into seven zones--northeast (Harlem Meer and environs), Northwest (the North Woods mostly), the Reservoir, teh Great lawn, the Ramble, Southeast (the Pond and environs), and Southwest (usually the least productive area, having no real water feature). I joined the Reservoir team this year (last year I did the Great Lawn).

It was a pleasant day to be out. Last year was miserable, icy and slushy, all the joys of bad footing and of getting your feet soaked through; but this year was warm for December, and partly sunny, and dry. But not birdy. The best birds of the day for us were right atthe start--the three Ring-Necked Ducks still hanging out in the southeast corner of the reservoir.

who's the best bird? you are!

Other than that, it was slow. We had a Kestrel along Central Park West around 94th Street--heard it first, calling klee-klee-klee! and then spotted it perched on a rooftop. Later we had what turned out to be the only Cedar Waxwing in the whole count. There were a goodly number of woodpeckers, including two Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers. I think it's rather late for them to be here.

lingering

At the compilation, it turned out that there were only 56 species seen in the whole park. Some of the missing species were pretty shocking--no Red-Winged Blackbirds--and numbers of some common species were very low--only a hundred-odd Robins, a couple of dozen Cardinals. Not sure what's going on with that. At least the Titmousen and Nuthatches were back in force after being basically missing last year.

plenty of these guys, though

Ring-Necked Ducks, Central Park Reservoir

Saturday at the Central Park Reservoir, I saw this:

Three-count'em!--three Ring-Necked Ducks

Three drake Ring-Necked Ducks, just hanging out. They seemed to be taking turns being the one awake. Andres Peltomaa tweeted that that's the high count ever for Ring-Necked Duck in Central Park. There had been two the previous day.

I didn't find the female Northern Pintail who had been reported a couple of days before. Sunday I went to Randall's Island in search of American Pipits--Jacob Drucker saw four on Saturday morning along the northeast shore line, and David Barrett had one a couple of days before--but had no luck. There was a flock of over 300 Brant on one of the baseball fields, which was interesting, and a bird flew by that I couldn't identify.

It was the size and general coloration and shape of s smallish gull--maybe a Bonaparte's or a Laughing Gull--but was brick red or chestnut on the undertail coverts or vent. It flew very directly east to west along the Bronx Kill with fast steady wingbeats, eventually rising to fly over the bridge and then slowly descending out of sight. I have no idea what it was. It doesn't seem to match anything in the books. maybe the red was actually its feet, tucked up under it? Still doesn't really match anything that I can see.

Photo interlude

I didn't go anywhere interesting today. Nothing much came in today that I heard about--maybe a few more Black-and-White Warblers out on the Point--so here's a few recent photos I haven't put on the blog already.

Cedar Waxwings, I love their little pot bellies.

It's easy to overlook what a good-looking bird a White-Throated Sparrow is.

The drab Pine Warbler that spent most of the winter in the Ramble hasn't been seen in a while. I guess that's another story whose ending I'll never know.

We're still seeing the Baltimore Orio;les who overwintered near Evodia, though. I assume this male will have his pick of the best nesting areas, since there won't be any others for another week or two yet.

I wonder if this Ring-Necked drake I saw the other week is the one who was on the Reservoir during the winter. That one liked to pal arounmd with Mallards, too.

The "kwirr!" call of the Red-Bellied Woodpecker is a common sound in the Ramble now.

Early Spring in Van Cortlandt Park

I was in Riverdale visiting my aunts and decided to take a stroll through the southwest part of Van Cortlandt Park before going home. On the way there, I watched five crows mob a Red-Tailed Hawk across the road from Brust Park.

At Van Cortlandt, Spring was swinging into motion. It looked so different from just two weeks before; snow had been everywhere and was now all gone, and the flooding was gone from the paths.

At the little freshwater marsh south of the Van Cortlandt mansion, many Song Sparrows were singing and some Red-winged Blackbirds calling, and a small group of Rusty Blackbirds popped out and back into the tall grass. Along the path northwest of the Parade Ground, Tufted Titmouses sang.

The best part was the marshy north end of Van Cortlandt Lake (just south of teh golf course fence), where countless Red-Winged Blackbirds called and sang, and then this guy cruised out of the reeds:

Ring-Necked Duck on Van Cortlandt Lake

A very nice Ring-Necked drake, always a good bird in New York City.

I worked my way eventually to the east side of the lake. There were some female Hooded Mergansers along with the Mallards on the south part of the lake, and yet more Red-Winged Blackbirds going off like alarm clocks everywhere. I especially liked this gaudy male:

High-steppin' Blackbird

A sunny late-winter Saturday

Saturday afternoon, Elena and I went to the reservoir to look for some of the recent rarities. The areas of open water had greatly expanded in the last few days, and the remaining ice was a thin and sickly grey.

We got to see the Red-Necked Grebe, who came quite close to shore on the west side.

The star of our show

Also fishing the west side were two Red-Breasted Mergansers. The drake was especially photogenic.

Sharp-looking Merganser

Down near the south pumphouse was a sleepy-looking Ring-Necked Duck.

Sleepy-eyed Ring-Necked Duck

Alas, the American Wigeon was not present.

Several people told us there were several American Woodcock in the Ramble. You can never see too many Woodcocks, so off we went. We found a group of birders peering into the brush a little south and east of the Humming Tombstone. That's always a good sign. There was a Woodcock giving pretty decent views in the late afternoon light.

Woodcock in the sun

There were supposed to be two others in the same fenced-off area. I walked around the edge and finally spotted one.

You can tell it's a different Woodcock because it's facing the other way.

What a lovely afternoon!

Nature, red in beak and talon

The Canvasbacks were gone from the Reservoir today. The group of Wood Ducks was still around, minus one drake:



And the Ring-Necked Duck is still around:



On the northern end of the Reservoir, I watched a female Hooded Merganser dive and come up with a crawfish:



And then I headed over to the Pool. On the way, I spotted a red-Tailed hawk perched high in a tree. I took a couple of photos, and then looked around and saw Karen Fung photographing something in another tree. She has followed a diving Red-Tailed Hawk from the Reservoir, and it was now enjoying a meal on a low perch:



I got a bunch of great shots of him dining, but some are not for the squeamish.

At the Pool, I had two first-of-year sightings, a Swamp Sparrow and a Brown Thrasher.



The sparrow was too deep in the shadows for a decent photo. Those two, plus a female Towhee on the eerily quiet Great Hill, get me up to 60 species for the year in New York County.

In with the new

We were out until 4 AM on New Year's Eve, but I still made it to the Park by 9:15. The continuing Ring-Necked drake was almost the first bird I saw when I got to the Reservoir.



I circled the reservoir and then headed down the west side of the park to the Reservoir. Across the street from Summit Rock, an American Kestrel surveyed the world from a balcony.



In the Ramble, A young Red-Tailed Hawk flew in and perched only a few feet from me.



Later, I saw a young Sharp-Shinned Hawk attacking squirrels. I think this was the same hawk I watched making passes at the ducks on Turtle Pond a few days ago. It's not having much luck.



Other park birding news: the Baltimore Orioles continue around Evodia. There's supposed to be a Winter Wren along the Gill between Azalea Pond and Laupot Bridge, but I didn't see it. Now you know as much as I do.



I ended 2013 with 176 species in New York County and 179 overall. That's counting the European Goldfinch, the Budgie, and the Yellow-Fronted Canary. So, really, three less without the escapees; though I'm inclined to count the Goldfinch, who was flocking with finches. I don't expect to get anything close to that in 2014, but I do start the year with 36 species, only two less than last January 1.