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.

Busy days in the Ramble

Friday, I got out of work early and visited Central Park in search of a Bluebird reported in the Ramble by Alice Deutsch. I went back on Saturday morning for a longer walk. No Bluebirds, but the Ramble was very birdy. The normal winter residents were out in force. There were Tufted Titmousim (Titmouses? Titmousoi?) in great numbers.

Titmouse in morning light

There were plenty of White-Breasted Nuthatches around, too.

Nuthatch doing the Nuthatch thing

There's usually several Red-Bellied Woodpeckers in the Ramble, but I think there are more than usual now.

finding something to eat in the post on the bridge railing

Red-Bellieds are usually sedentary, but I have read that the will migrate sometimes when conditions are bad on their home grounds.

Among more traditionally migratory birds, there are a lot of Fox Sparrows around.

e pluribus Fox Sparrow

I saw a dozen on Friday and nearly as many Saturday, mostly in Mugger's Woods.

Saturday, there were a couple of Rusty Blackbirds going up and down the Gill between Azalea Pond and Laupot Bridge.

infrequent visitor

They were very confiding. Rustys are not regular visitors to the Park, although we usually get a few sightings.

Among a cloud of Goldfinches bathing near the Gill Overlook, there were four or five Pine Siskins.

blending in with the Goldfinches

Siskins seem to be irrupting this winter, so there will likely be a lot of sightings in the next few months. I wonder if Crossbills will come in as well?

While looking around the Tanner's Spring area just before leaving the Park, I mused that I hadn't seen any Kestrels lately. Of course, I hadn't been searching too hard; I reasoned that if some regularly scanned their usual perches long Central Park West, they could probably see one every day.

Right after that, in the meadow just north of Winterdale Arch, I saw a bird fly onto a low branch of a tree full of Robins and some other birds. It few out again immediately, followed--after a stunned half-second--by every bird in the meadow. It was a Kestrel, and he had just snatched a Junco right off the branch.

Kestrel, Junco prey, and a mobbing Blue Jay

The kestrel was mobbed by Blue Jays, Robins, Mourning Doves, Sparrows, and whatever else was around. They chased him from tree to tree, back and forth across the whole area, the Jays screaming, the Kestrel calling a shrill kli kli kli kli kli. The Kestrel would light in a tree with his prey, still calling, and some seconds later fly off again, Jays and allies in hot pursuit. Two or three times a piercing shriek rose above the general clamor. I don't know if it was the Kestrel screaming, or the world's angriest Jay, or perhaps even the unfortunate Junco.

I wish I were good at photographing birds in flight, it was quite a sight in my binoculars. After five minutes or so, The Kestrel finally flew far enough away that many of the pursuing birds gave up. Unforgettable!

Rainy day

Heavy rain all day, so I didn't get out. Monday I stopped in the Ramble briefly on my way to the Bronx. I failed to spot the Hooded Warbler who was seen on the Point and also in the Captain's Bench area, missed the Spotted Sandpiper in the Oven by mere minutes, and didn't have time to try for the Yellow-Throated Warbler seen around Sheep Meadow and then south of Tavern on the Green. I did see my first Northern Waterthrush and Chimney Swifts of the season, which brought me to 109 species in Manhattan this year. The Chimney Swifts retruning is my marker for the real beginning of Spring.

The southwest part of Van Cortlandt Park was not as birdy as I expected. A lot of red-Winged Blackbirds are around, and I had a nice look at a female RWBB in the wetlands area south of the mansion.

Female blackbird calling

She was calling, rather sweetly for a blackbird. I also saw a lingering Rusty Blackbird there. There was a Ring-Necked Duck on the lake; I wonder if he was the same drake I saw there a month ago. A number of singing Yellow-Rumped Warblers were around, and also Tree Swallows, Barn Swallows, and (yes!) Chimney Swifts.

Tuesday, I saw a report early in the morning that the Yellow-Throated Warbler was seen just south of Sheep meadow, so I headed straight down there...and struck out. I spent an hour and a half getting "warbler neck" from scanning the trees between the 65th Street Transverse and the Bandshell. No dice. I did get a nice addition to my photo collection of House Sparrows nesting in interesting places:

Sparrow at her nest in a street sign

And a good look at the male Red-Tailed Hawk of the pair that is nesting near the Sheep Meadow.

I think that's a bit of his breakfast still in his beak.

Reaching the Ramble, I saw a Yellow Warbler right near Bow Bridge. Poor thing seemed to be missing its tail, but it was flying pretty well anyway. The other newly-arrived warbler species I didn't see, nor had anyone seen the Hooded Warbler from the day before again.

On my way out, at Maintenance meadow there were some Chipping Sparrows and one Field Sparrow.

Field Sparrow, ohsocute

There haven't been a lot of Field Sparrows this Spring. I think they're about the cutest thing going.

The yellow Warbler was my 110th species in New York county this year. Tomorrow it's supposed to stop raining in the afternoon, so I'll go see what's around after the storm.

Unknown knowns

To the categories of Rumsfeldian epistemology we can add the category of "unknown knowns": things we know without knowing that we know them. Yesterday as I approached Evodia, I saw a sparrow feeding on the ground with the White-Throateds and Juncos. All I saw from that distance was the shape and distinct white wingbars (one low and bold, one high and short and thin), but I immediately thought, "hey, the American Tree Sparrow is back". And so it was.



I hadn't known that the wingbars were a good field mark for that sparrow.

I also saw a Rusty Blackbird just west of Azalea Pond:



But I knew right off what that was and why.

P.S. Googling around, I found a nice recent blog post about American Tree Sparrow identification t birdaz.com: http://birdaz.com/blog/2014/02/27/how-many-wing-bars/.

"Spring is coming!" "He is?"

Elena and I went to Central Park today.  We were particularly looking for the very early Pine Warbler that has been reported recently and for the American Woodcock reported in the Oven yesterday, which would be year birds for both of us.  The Woodcock especially is infrequent in the Park, and not common for New York in general.  Also we hoped for the American Tree Sparrow who has been seen around Evodia lately, which I have seen but Elena had not; and for Red-Winged Blackbirds, quite common but neither of us had seen any this year.

Well, we got them all.

First, we saw Cedar Waxwings between Maintenance and the Gill source.  Next, the Pine Warbler was practically the first bird we saw when we got to Evodia.  It was bouncing around on the ground just a few feet from the fence on the south side of the field.



Later the American Tree Sparrow showed up, and the female Baltimore Oriole who's been around all winter (didn't see the male today), and also a Rusty Blackbird,



and several Brown Creepers, and the other usual birds.  I could hear male Red-Winged Blackbirds going off all over the place, but none were in sight.

We went for a walk around Willow Rock (we didn't spot the Woodcock) the Riviera (nice bunch of Song Sparrows), and the Pin Oak swamp (nothin'), then returned to Evodia where Kevin (a very good birder) told us he had in fact seen the Woodcock at the Oven, and kindly led a small group over to see it.  With his help, we got a nice view:



Eventually we went back to Evodia, where the RWBBs finally came out before being flushed by our final first-of-season sighting:  an entitled asshole letting his dog run off leash.  Spring is coming!

Van Cortlandt Park: Rusty Blackbirds and Tufted Titmouses

Friday, I closed out January by going to Central Park in the morning (and failing to find the Pine Siskin reported the previous day) and then up to the Bronx for a stroll through the southwest part of Van Cortlandt Park before visiting my aunts.

The highlight was a flock of 35 to 40 Rusty Blackbirds, foraging on the grass between the marsh area north of the soccer field and the nature center at the south end of the Parade Ground. It was a lovely sight. I've never seen so many Rustys at once.

Just east of the Parade Ground, I saw a few Tufted Titmouses (Titmice? Titmousim?), my first of the year and in fact my first since last Spring. Charming as always.