A Magic Tree

Blackburnian Warbler (male)

Another great phenomenon of migration is the "magic tree". Sometimes, a certain tree will just be full of migrants, especially warblers, for an hour or two, busily feeding and giving great looks to anyone who passes by. Central Park had a Magic Tree on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. It was just off the plaza of Belvedere Castle, and it was something to see.

Bay-Breasted Warbler

I had some of the finest close views of Blackburnian and Bay-Breasted warblers I've ever seen, all in a low honey locust tree in beautiful morning light. A crowd of birders stood only ten or twelve feet from the tree--the birds didn't care.

Blackburnian Warbler (female)

It's not clear to me why certain trees get so popular. There wasn't anything obvious about this one--just an ordinary-looking tree, not especially lush--a little scraggly if anything. But it was in flower and the flowers must have been full of bugs.

The low branches of the tree were basically at eye level, so we got some fairly unusual views of foraging warblers, like the Bay-Breasted above and the Blackburnian below.

In all, I saw ten warbler species in this one small tree: Blackburnian, Bay-Breasted, Blackpoll...

Blackpoll (female)

..an apparent first- spring female Chestnut-Sided:

Magnolia Warbler{

Yellow Warbler:

fie on your "gravity"

...as well as American Redstart, Common Yellowthroat, Black-Throated Blue Warbler and Black-Throated Green Warbler. There were also a couple of Red-Eyed Vireos.

Red-Eyed Vireo

Amazing tree, amazing morning.

there may be a quiz

Breaking News!

There's been a lot of stuff happening. Here's a quick rundown:

Fall migration has begun

first warbler of the Fall

I had my first warbler of the Fall migration season on Wednesday, A Yellow Warbler calling constantly and foraging in the trees beside the dock at Turtle Pond.

Also at Turtle Pond, a pair Kingbirds had nested above the dock, but I haven't seen any signs of fledglings, and today Junko Suzuki notices that they seemed to gathering more nesting material. I saw that as well, after she pointed it out. Do Kingbirds ever re-nest if they've had a nesting failure, or start a second brood after fledging the first? I've read that they only ever have one brood.

Tern festival!

TERN FESTIVAL

Elena and I went to Governor's Island on Sunday for the Audubon Tern Festival. It was too hot for us to do any of the bird walks, but we did have a nice look at the colony on Yankee Pier.

OMG baby terns

The fledgling terns are coming along nicely. Terns will re-nest if there's a problem with their first batch of eggs, so the baby terns range from these fuzzy globular chicks to well-plumaged adolescents.

Man, are they all noisy.

Governors Island Yellow-Crowned Night Heron update

we're a happy family

The Yellow-Crowned Night Heron nest on Governors Island has not just one, not two, not three, but four baby birds in it (you can see three in that photo). It was a 90-degree day, and the parents and nestlings were visibly panting. I had the impression that the adults were mostly standing there to shade the young ones.

They're about three weeks old (Ben Cacace first saw a nestling on July 2, and it was not more than a couple of days old at that point). They are supposed to take 30 to 42 days to leave the nest, so we're looking at the very end of July or the first week or two of August for the fledging.

There's also a second nest on the island--I don't know where, exactly--but the reports sound like the same male might be responsible for both. I have not heard about any nestlings there.

There's a very nice YouTube video of the nest, by Cathy (who is quoteny on YouTube and @Cathyewe on twitter).

Also on Governors Island, we saw a large number of Brown Cowbirds, none of them adult males; many seemed to be juveniles to my eyes. Anyone know what's up with that?

For the May Day is the great day...

Wednesday nigh the winds were generally southerly, and the rain mostly ended before dawn. So there was a pretty good migratory movement into Central Park, and I had a really good day: 43 species, ten first-of-year, ten warblers.

In the morning, I started off with a Blue-Winged Warbler at Maintenance meadow (it stayed around there all day).

Blue-Winged Warbler and prey

A Northern Parula warbler and a Warbling Vireo were high in trees above the Gill source; I saw Wood Thrush in various places, and heard their echoing songs; Gray Catbirds popped up here and there.

In the late afternoon, I returned--a Worm-Eating Warbler had joined the Blue-Winged, and down the Riviera were Canada and Chestnut-Sided Warblers.

Canada Warbler posing

Finally, as I was leaving, I joined a group looking at a Scarlet Tanager high in the trees near the "captain's bench".

Scarlet Tanager, suspicious

Yellow-Rumped and Palm Warblers remained ubiquitous, Black-and-white warblers were around in small numbers; a Yellow Warbler sang very loudly just south of Willow Rock, and a Prairie Warbler sang at Tupelo Meadow.

Prairie Warbler singing

In other warbler news, the Yellow-Throated Warbler was again seen near Tavern on the Green, and Black-Throated Blue Warblers and both waterthrushes were reported.

Winds look to be westerly, maybe West-southwest, tonight, so I expect there won't be a lot of movement out. Maybe I can still catch up with the Yellow-Throated.

Yellow Warbler on the move

(I'm now at 120 species this year in New York County; 14 species, or 9 days, ahead of last year.)