Inwood and Central Parks, Nov 17th: Barred/Bluebird/Brant but no Barnacle

The possibility of a Barnacle Goose lured me all the way up to the tip of Manhattan and Inwood Hill Park early on Saturday.  The Barnacle was nowhere to be found, although I checked all the grassy areas.  A consolation prize - and apparently my first ones for Manhattan - were a flock of 10 American Pipits on the eastern ball fields.


The rest of the day turned out rather more successfully, and by the time I limped off to the train I'd covered a few miles and added three Central Park birds to my list, which now numbers 199.  A little walk across the north end of the park brought me to the Conservatory Garden where the northern (circular) flower garden is an absolute riot of color.  It's understandably lured in a Rufous Hummingbird  that's been there for about a week - I got enough poor tail-spread photographs to be sure it was a female Rufous and not any other Selasphorus, and the incomplete emergent gorget spot suggests it's an immature although I'm not totally certain on age.  This is not the first hummingbird seen in this location - there was an Allen's in 2002, and it's not the first Rufous I've seen in the park since there was an adult female Rufous in 2004.  As long as those flowers keep going and there's not a hard frost the hummingbird should do well for some time at this location.  (Update: it was gone by the following Friday).  I spent some time at this very colorful and warm location and also noted two Ruby-crowned Kinglets and a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker but not a great deal else - although there were crossbills reported from more coastal locations there did not seem to be a flight over the park.

I met Junko at the hummingbird who told me about a Brant at the Reservoir.  I managed to miss this on the way down the park the first time but looped back up there on my way out of the park and got good looks at an immature Brant hanging out with Canada Geese.  Wood Ducks, Hooded Mergansers, Gadwall, Northern Shoveler, Bufflehead and Ruddy Ducks were some of the more interesting waterfowl on the Reservoir, mostly clustered at the north end.

The I headed down to what has become a reliable spot for Barred Owl.  Barred Owl would normally be exceptionally rare in the park but there was one on the western edge of the park last winter (also roamed the Upper West Side, apparently) and this winter there may be as many as three Barred Owls here.  Despite once being a pretty regular Long-eared Owl roosting spot, Central Park hasn't hosted any regularly roosting owls in years.  Thankfully (and rather unlike the Long-eared) the Barred Owl roost is a long way off the ground, immune to curious onlookers.  A lot of passer's by were curious about this owl, so my skyward-pointed camera turned out to be mostly used a spotting scope.  I've accumulated a pretty good list of owls seen in the park (Long-eared, Northern Saw-whet, Great Horned, Barn, Barred, Boreal) but this was one of the better ones and one that I never expected to see here.

Finally, I was alerted to an Eastern Bluebird feeding at Sparrow Rock.  This bird seemed pretty tame for a Bluebird, considering a small crowd of birders gathered to admire it, and was in immature male plumage - still pretty resplendent in deep sky blue and red but with a little brown shading to the blue color on the scapulars and nape and pointed retrices.  Also there was a Hermit Thrush, which the Bluebird seemed to be using at times to detect insects and then attempted to steal them from it.  The Bluebird seemed to be doing fairly well on insect hunting, and the continuing fairly sunny and milder conditions (high in the 50's) suggest that all the park rarities should do fine for at least the next week.


Brant                              
Wood Duck                            
Gadwall                              
Northern Shoveler                    
Bufflehead                            
Hooded Merganser                      
Ruddy Duck                            
Pied-billed Grebe                                                
Barred Owl
Rufous Hummingbird
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker              
American Kestrel                      
White-breasted Nuthatch              
Carolina Wren                        
Ruby-crowned Kinglet                  
Eastern Bluebird                        
Hermit Thrush                        

Update: the Barnacle Goose seems to be more reliably seen at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, which is geographically close to Inwood.

Starting 2012 in Manhattan - Dickcissel and Rufous Humingbird (again)

I don't take state listing too seriously, but the two lists I do pay some attention to are life lists (USA: 644) and year lists. So at dawn on 1/1/2012 the year list was zero and needed some work.

First stop: Perth Amboy waterfront, in search of Eurasian Wigeon without success. This is not somewhere I've birded before but was more-or-less en route to Manhattan. I found other ducks like American Wigeon, Gadwall, Bufflehead, American Black Duck, Red-breasted Merganser and a Double-crested Cormorant (seen well, not a Great). A Cooper's Hawk was hunting downtown, but there wasn't any reason to delay getting into NYC any longer.

Second stop: Inwood Hill Park at 200th St (Dyckman) where it took almost no time at all to find the Dickcissel feeding in the ball fields amongst the House Sparrows. A good extra find was a fly-over flock of Cedar Waxwings.

Third stop: easily finding parking along Madison, I walked from E72nd to W81st through Central Park in a meandering route, checking evergreens for Barred Owl (no luck). The Ramble was quiet and the best bird by far was the Eastern Phoebe at Turtle Pond. I found two more Cedar Waxwings near Tanner's Spring and then starting the wait for the Rufous. Seen earlier in the day, it took its sweet time turning up outside the American Museum of Natural History. It was relatively warmer out and some bees were feeding on the Leatherleaf Mahonia that were still flowering (apparently flowering during the winter). Having got decent looks at the Rufous Hummingbird I hopped the subway and went down to Bryant Park which was about as crowded as it was on xmas eve. I've not got much patience for crowds but did see White-throated Sparrows and a single Ovenbird (by far my late date - I wonder if it has any chance of making it to spring?).

Finally I hopped a bus and returned to the park - a Wood Duck on 59th Street Pond and a Red-headed Woodpecker at the Hallett Sanctuary were good finds here - before retreating to my car and heading home.

Christmas Eve - Rufous Hummingbird and Dickcissel

Manhattan on the last shopping day before Christmas ? Madness. However I decided to take a little photo/birding trip into NYC in search of two rarities: Dickcissel and Rufous Hummingbird.

The Dickcissel was significant because I've seen very few Dickcissels in general (my first being one at Jones Beach in 2001), certainly not annually, although 2011 was a bumper year for them by comparison: one in FL; the ones at Negri-Nepote in late spring; singing birds in TX; and now this one. This Dickcissel was spending time in a large (30+) House Sparrow flock, as often is the way with Dickcissels. The flock was very skittish so it took a while to find the bird even though it had enough yellow (immature male) to stick out from the crowd once you found it. I saw a Dickcissel in Central Park in 2008, the only other one I saw in NYC.

Hummingbirds are another story: I've seen quite a few Rufous this year, mainly on the Pacific Northwest trip but also in Yonkers in November. A Yonkers Rufous Hummingbird in 2001 spawned my first web page and I've pursued a mini project of photographing NYC hummingbirds. This Rufous is an immature female and was found on December 14th. It's on the north side of the American Museum for Natural History - i.e. the cold side - with no direct sun but some reflected sun. Perhaps the micro-environment has kept the hardy plants flowering on which this Rufous is depending on for it's short-term survival. A lot of vagrant Rufous in this area make it into the first few days of January but disappear soon after, so I will try and see it again on Jan 1st.

"Rufous" Hummingbird, Lenoir Preserve

Vagrant western hummingbirds are what spurred my whole web site development in the first place. My first home page was a precursor to what is now located at philjeffrey.net/Hummingbirds.html and was prompted by the first Rufous Hummingbird I saw at Lenoir Preserve in Yonkers in November 2001. That was the same year as the Fort Tryon Calliopes.

So it was natural that I wanted to go check out the latest hummingbird vagrant at Lenoir, even if Yonkers is a lot further away from home than it used to be. It took me a little while to find the Selasphorus sp. hummingbird, but it was probably sleeping or torpid before the sun started hitting the trees and butterfly garden. Once things started to warm up I saw it spending most of its time insect catching in the trees and the garden as the sun started to hit it. It spent some time in the Salvia Pineapple Sage at the edge of the garden, and a small amount of time at one of the feeders. From plumage the bird was an immature female, but this hummingbird was fairly shy and I didn't get anything remotely like a tail spread shot. The consensus is that it is a Rufous Hummingird (now apparently confirmed), although the staffer at the visitor center indicated that there was a suspicion that it was an Allen's and would be caught to determine which.

I'm pretty much invariably against capturing vagrant hummingbirds out of pseudo-scientific curiosity because it's not part of any systematic research plan and these birds are under enough stress attempting to survive in alien habitats in deteriorating weather. The cost to the bird is significant, and it tells us almost nothing.

There's a proposal to close Lenoir Preserve visitor center being considered by Westchester County - you could email the County Executive (Robert Astorino, ce@westchestergov.com) to express your opposition to this plan. The budget vote is apparently Dec 27th 2011, so sooner is better than later. (Updated to reflect the fact that it's apparently the staff that are getting fired rather than the preserve closed to all access).