I want my money back

Which is exactly the quote I used on another birder upon spending some time in Strawberry Fields on Sunday morning (Sept 26th) - a day with overnight north winds after several warmer days with southerly winds.  Apparently it had been more active 45 minutes earlier, but there simply wasn't the volume you'd expect from a cooler day in late September.  Accordingly the diversity was lower and it was hard going at times.  Predominant overcast made it more difficult.  A little early morning raptor movement (Kestrel, Osprey) didn't seem to materialize into anything else - perhaps the NE tendency to the northerly winds pushed more migrants inland, but there weren't any big dropout reports from elsewhere.

More signs of the ongoing migration shift where the absence of Pewees and the presence of Yellow-rumped Warbler and Dark-eyed Junco along with bigger numbers of White-throated Sparrows.

Osprey
American Kestrel
Chimney Swift
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Northern Flicker
Eastern Phoebe
Blue-headed Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Black-capped Chickadee
Red-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
House Wren
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Veery
Swainson's Thrush
Gray Catbird
Brown Thrasher
Cedar Waxwing
probable Tennessee Warbler
Nashville Warbler
Northern Parula
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Blackpoll Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
American Redstart
Ovenbird
Northern Waterthrush
Common Yellowthroat
Scarlet Tanager
Eastern Towhee
Dark-eyed Junco
White-throated Sparrow
Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Gray-cheeked Thrush

Gray-cheeked Thrushes can have pink bills.  Who knew ?

This is a bird that was milling around with several Swainson's Thrushes on September 11th and I initially called as a Gray-cheeked Thrush in the field, based on an overall colder tone and the severe lack of any buffy eye ring or spectacles in the face.  There was no rufous in the primaries or the tail, and the lower mandible was more than half black so Bicknell's was ruled out.

The bird was relatively small for a Gray-cheeked, and on the olive end of the gray-olive spectrum, so I popped a few extra pictures of it.  Then I got a surprise when processing the above picture - the lower mandible is pale pink, not yellow.  The yellow color comes from the gape.  The bird is a first fall immature as indicated by the buffy tips to the coverts and the pointed tail feathers.

The pink bill had me wondering about western subspecies of Swainson's Thrush and other possibilities, and then subsequently I pulled out Peter Pyle's book "Identification Guide to North American Birds Part I"  which indicated that the paler section of the lower mandible ranges from "pale flesh" to "yellowish flesh".  I then pulled up my other GCTH photos and found that this was not the first time I'd seen this, just not usually in a bird that was more colorful and smaller than most.  Bicknell's has a yellowish lower mandible with the yellow color covering >50% of the length.  I'd assumed that Gray-cheeked had yellow bills as well, but apparently I'm wrong.

Based on size this bird may well be the subspecies Catharus minimus minimus, which is on the small end of the GCTH.  If anything this bird was a little smaller than the Swainson's whereas GCTH are usually a little bigger.  This is also a cautionary tale for using structure to ID Bicknell's, since this Gray-cheeked is very Bicknell's in overall structure.

Age and sex ID based on molt, part 1

I take a lot of photographs, and some of the birds I take photos of are as much for plumage interest as aesthetics.  This is an example of a somewhat scruffy Red-winged Blackbird at Brigantine NWR in NJ in August:

Blackbirds go through active molt in August-September and frequently look quite odd.  This particular RWBL has molted some body feathers but not yet the head or neck, so it looks odd in the head.  If we zoom in on the tail:

it is heavily frayed - older feathers not recently molted.
On the wings there's a mix of mostly new flight feathers and one or two older ones:

Looking at the condition and overall coloration of the feathers tells us all we need to determine age and sex, within reasonable bounds.  The feathers on the tail are quite worn, so they are quite a few months old - molted at or around this time last year.  So this bird is an adult, i.e. more than one year old.  Similarly that outermost primary looks pretty worn too.  Since this bird is an adult, the fact that the feathers are brown means that it must be a female - there is no distinct "first summer" plumage for male RWBL birds so a male of this age would have black flight feathers.  In fact the pointedness of that worn outermost primary suggests that this adult female might be only a little more than one year old - flight feathers from first fall passerines are usually more pointed than adults.

Central Park 9/21 - they're ba-ack

No, not the Black-and-White above, I mean the sparrows, or more specifically the White-throated Sparrows, who will be with us as individuals or at least in species until May. I missed the early action in Strawberry Fields, finding a few pockets elsewhere in the park but nothing especially notable apart from my first WTSPs of fall - currently in small numbers. A further change in the season was indicated by other first-of-fall species: Golden-crowned Kinglet, Blue-headed Vireo. Numbers of Swainson's Thrushes remain pretty high.  The Black-and-white Warbler shown above is actually an adult male in basic plumage - most of the Black-and-whites seen in fall are on the drabber adult female - immature male - immature female axis, but this has quite a lot of black in the auriculars.

Double-crested Cormorant
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Northern Flicker
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Eastern Phoebe
Blue-headed Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Carolina Wren
House Wren
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Veery
Swainson's Thrush
Wood Thrush
Gray Catbird
Brown Thrasher
Cedar Waxwing
Northern Parula
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Blackpoll Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
American Redstart
Ovenbird
Common Yellowthroat
Swamp Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow

Central Park 9/18

Do you get the general idea that I'm birding Central Park a fair amount this fall ? Saturday was a fair migration day and it dawned clear. Or at least it did over Ewing NJ, but as the train sped northward I discovered that there was a block of cloud settled over NYC that took a while to clear. The light at the start of the day was dark and challenging so although there were some warblers around quite a few of the sightings were silhouettes. Eastern Phoebe, Brown Creeper and Palm Warbler were the new fall arrivals for me. Of interest was a Song Sparrow in Strawberry Fields that showed juvenile plumage - perhaps a late season local bird that hadn't yet molted into first basic plumage. Despite fairly modest migrant volume (again Strawberry Fields was the best) a good 14 warbler species, including a rather nice but brief view of a male Hooded Warbler.

Sharp-shinned Hawk
Chimney Swift
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Eastern Phoebe
Red-eyed Vireo
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Carolina Wren
Gray-cheeked Thrush
Swainson's Thrush
Gray Catbird
Brown Thrasher
Cedar Waxwing
Northern Parula
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Prairie Warbler
Palm Warbler
Blackpoll Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
American Redstart
Ovenbird
Northern Waterthrush
Common Yellowthroat
Hooded Warbler
Scarlet Tanager
Song Sparrow (juvenile)
Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Central Park 9/16

Although 9/15 was perhaps the better day I had a (yet another) dental appointment so went into the city on the 0537 on 9/16 instead. The conservancy, bless them, have closed the lawn on Strawberry Fields making it difficult to bird there but there was still a decent movement of warblers. They always seem to drift north through Strawberry Fields in what's presumably a reflection of the local habitat. Best bird there was a Bay-breasted Warbler. In the Ramble birding was patchy - at times Azalea Pond (Ruby-crowned Kinglet) was hot, at times the Tupelo Tree. In the Maintenance Field it was slow but high quality - Yellow-billed Cuckoo doing a double fly-by, Ruby-throated Hummingbird harassing a Magnola Warbler, Nashville Warbler, Least Flycatcher and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.

The Kinglet, Sapsucker and fairly numerous Thrashers signaled a subtle but perceptible species shift over the previous weekend.

Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Maint. field)
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Least Flycatcher
Great Crested Flycatcher
Red-eyed Vireo
Carolina Wren
House Wren
Winter Wren
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Veery
Gray-cheeked Thrush (Hernshead)
Swainson's Thrush
Wood Thrush
Gray Catbird
Brown Thrasher
Cedar Waxwing
Nashville Warbler
Northern Parula
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Bay-breasted Warbler
Blackpoll Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
American Redstart
Ovenbird
Northern Waterthrush
Common Yellowthroat
Eastern Towhee
Song Sparrow
Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Central Park 9/11

Migration on this 9/11 was reminiscent of the other 9/11 with clear skies and a cool start off a northwestern wind - pretty good although not yet maximal in terms of diversity. This one lacked the attendant disaster, thank God. I stayed in Strawberry Fields much of the time, reflecting the steady volume there. At one point I had Blackpoll, Blackburnian and Bay-breasted in one small part of a tree. Later on I added Cape May, shortly after a Bald Eagle flew past. I only added a couple more warbler species elsewhere.

Bald Eagle
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Northern Flicker
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Empidonax Flycatcher sp.
Great Crested Flycatcher
Eastern Kingbird
Red-eyed Vireo
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Carolina Wren
Veery
Gray-cheeked Thrush
Swainson's Thrush
Wood Thrush
Gray Catbird
Northern Parula
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Cape May Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Bay-breasted Warbler
Blackpoll Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
American Redstart
Ovenbird
Common Yellowthroat
Wilson's Warbler
Scarlet Tanager
Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Forsythe/Brigantine NWR: Yellow-headed Blackbirds and grassland shorebirds

The problem with being social is that it eats into the early morning birding starts. In this case I got a tardy start at Brigantine NWR - a shameful 8:30am. I did two loops around the auto loop, and on the first loop mostly ignored shorebirds in the NW pool as I headed to the NE "pool" which is mainly a grass flat now. En route I noticed that most of the Forster's Terns were in or near basic plumage now. It was high tide, and apparently there were a lot of schooling fish since there were multiple cormorant-tern-heron feeding frenzies at locations in the southern pool. There were a lot of Snowy/Great Egrets, Forster's Terns and Double-crested Cormorants at these frenzies.

There were also a lot of swallows. Thousands. At one point I looked across the impoundements and got a sense of the magnitude since as far as I looked the air teemed with Tree, Barn and Bank Swallows - there were a reasonable number of the latter too.

Outside the impoundments I found a group of at least 10 Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrows perched up and apparently waiting out the high tide - this being comfortably my all time high count. A mix of adults and immatures and accompanied by a vocal Clapper Rail perched up in the saltmarsh.

Finally I made it around to the dog leg, dodging caterpillars crossing the tour road as I went, and scanned the grass flats. Heat haze was cutting into visibility already, but I found two American Golden-Plovers and a Buff-breasted Sandpiper on the first pass, and then just as I settled on a Baird's the group took flight. I found a more cooperative Baird's Sandpiper a little later, as well as a total of 4 Buff-breasted's. The surprise was finding two Yellow-headed Blackbirds sitting on the edge of the grass flats as I searched for Baird's and Buff-breasted's. They sat there for a while letting me assess bill and tail length to make sure it wasn't some aberrant Boat-tailed Grackle plumage (too yellow in any event). First time I'd seen these in NJ.

On the second tour around the auto loop I added a few shorebirds: White-rumped Sandpiper, Whimbrel, Short-billed Dowitcher and Lesser Yellowlegs to the list, but it was getting hotter and I didn't linger. Notable absence was Willet - presumably all the Eastern ssp birds have left and the Western ssp ones have yet to take their place.

American Black Duck
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Osprey
Bald Eagle
Whimbrel
Black-bellied Plover
American Golden-Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
White-rumped Sandpiper
Baird's Sandpiper
Buff-breasted Sandpiper
Short-billed Dowitcher
Caspian Tern
Forster's Tern
Black Skimmer
Tree Swallow
Bank Swallow
Barn Swallow
Yellow Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow
Yellow-headed Blackbird