Midtown birding

Until the end of October, when my job moved, I worked at 45th Street and Sixth Avenue. Across the street is a pedestrian plaza--a fountain, some cafe tables, a few trees--that I hadn't really paid much attention to in the Spring and Summer. But in September and October it was surprisingly birdy.

Several Common Yellowthroats passed through, and a Brown Thrasher stayed for a considerable time, only disappearing a few days before I did.

The photo above is a looking out of the plaza onto 46th Street. I don't have a good photo of the plaza's glory, which is a circle of five Dawn Redwoods. The history of the plaza is kind of interesting; here's an old New York Times article about the plaza.

The neighboring building was the headquarters of International Paper, whose symbol is a redwood tree. The redwoods can stand there because that part of the park was occupied by a building whose owner didn't sell out for years, so there isn't any building space below teh tree circle, so it can accommodate the tree's huge root balls.

One of the first interesting birds I noticed there was this Ovenbird, the only warbler besides The Yellowthroats I saw there. The Ovenbird moved on fairly quickly, which is good. Every year, one or two Ovenbirds try to overwinter a few blocks away in Bryant Park. They never make it.

This Flicker showed upo one afternoon, farging furiously on the ground behind the benches, just a few feet away from peopel chattingon cellphones and drinking coffee. It wasn't there the next day. A Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker showed up one in a while. That one might be trying to stay the winter.

A number of other migrants came through -- sparrows and Towhees and Catbirds and Hermit Thrushes. Some of them occasionally do manage to survive a winter in the city, but usually in Central Park.

The best bird I saw in the plaza was a Woodcock, who foraged fairly happily in the redwood circle, but flew out in the mid-afternoon. I think he found the street noise a bit much.

Of course, the little park also had the usual New York street birds--House and White-Throated Sparrows, Starlings, and pigeons. Here's a couple of pigeons who were getting affectionate my on my last day there.

My new work neighborhood is less interesting, but I'll have something to say about it eventually. really, there are birds almost anywhere if you look.

Spring begins

Spring has arrived, and with it the first migrants. American Woodcocks have been seen in the Ramble several times in the last couple of weeks; then on Tuesday, a pair showed up in Bryant Park.

Woodcocks have a terrible time navigating through cities. They migrate at night, flying very low--only about 50 feet up--and their eyes are placed so far back on their heads that their vision straight in front is poor. All this makes them the most like birds to be involved in window collisions.

These two seemed OK--they were foraging actively in the light rain, and seemed quite aware that they were being watched. They didn't flush to cover, but they did move away from the observers' lines of sight. Of course, who can really tell how a collision-dazed Woodcock would act?

It rained into the evening, so they might not have flown out tonight. If you're in New York City and reading this on Wednesday, it might be worth looking for them. Today I found them in the daffodil plantings near the birdbath in the northeast part of the park.

Sparrows are moving through as well--this Swamp Sparrow was also in Bryant Park, and I've seen several in Central Park as well. Both parks are covered in a fine mist of Song Sparrows. Central Park has also been hosting a large number of Fox Sparrows--I've seen a dozen in a day.

Other recent arrivals are Black-Crowned Night Heron; one has been reported around the Lake in Central Park. I haven't seen it yet, but I did have my first Great Egret of the year at Turtle Pond on Monday evening.

And of course, Spring isn't Spring until the Phoebes arrive. They started to come in at the end of last week, hurrah!

I haven't seen any warblers yet, but there was a sighting of a Pine Warbler at the Ross Pinetum in Central Park on Monday. Keep watching the skies!

First Phoebe of Spring

Some birders mark the real beginning of Spring from the sighting of the first Eastern Phoebe. Though I'm not really one of them, I do admit that the first Phoebe does give a certain sense of Springitude to the proceedings.

Elena and I were having brunch and discussing where to go afterwards, and I checked my usual bird resources. On the NYNYBird web page (the web site for a text alert system I don't subscribe to; I don't like texts) was a message from Karen Fung: "E phoebe swampy pin oak. FOY?"

Certainly the first I'd heard of. So we went to the Ramble, intending to check the Swampy Pin Oak. That needs a new name, by the way, since the big Pin Oak was brought down in the aftermath of Sandy, but I digress.

We came up Cedar Hill, spotting a male baltimore Oriole there (maybe the one who wintered around Evodia), and entered the Ramble through Maintenance Meadow, and...

Phirst Phoebe

...there it was, our first Phoebe of the year. Ah, Spring!

Evodia was normally busy with the usual birds, including the female Baltimore Oriole. There were a lot of Downy Woodpeckers around.

Downy glaring at an incoming house sparrow

We spotted another Phoebe a little south of the Humming Tombstone, and also our first Hairy Woodpecker of the year (life bird for Elena, and 82nd species of the year for me).

We looked for Woodcock in the Humming Tombstone area, with no luck, but at Tupelo Meadow we saw someone peering intently into the fenced area around the big Tupelo tree. She made a complete circuit, and then suddenly a football with wings burst forth from the middle of the area and flew south toward the Gill. So there are still Woodcocks around.

At the east end of Tupelo Meadow is a tree dark with sap. Two Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers were disputing ownership.

winner and still champeen!

See how his crest is up? That's an agitated bird.

On our way back out through Maintenance, we saw this Swamp Sparrow in the meadow.

Spring in his step

That's Spring all over.

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.