Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Varied Thrush in Central Park, Nov 30th


It's just a number, but as of last weekend I'd been sitting at 194 species seen in Central Park for quite some time. Now that I'm no longer in Manhattan it's become a little harder to track down one-day wonders although over the years I've not done badly in that department. I did, however, take time to visit the park on Tuesday morning to see the Varied Thrush that had originally been spotted by Mike Bryant et al on Sunday.

This Varied Thrush is an immature, and so sex is indeterminate, and there's some indication that it's had a hard life - the feathers at the throat on one side show a cleft that is suggestive of some injury. And it was mentioned to me that a toe might be dislocated. I didn't notice this myself and the bird seemed quite mobile and robust. In fact the only other Varied Thrush I'd ever seen was in MA in the dead of winter at Quabbin Reservoir feeding in the snow (Feb 13th 2004). I'm grateful that this bird stayed around long enough to be park bird #195.

Now all we need is another 5 vagrants.....

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