Central Park, April 28th

In one week numbers have dropped because of indifferent migration weather, but diversity has exploded.  Somehow - and many of these were heard-only - I racked up 15 species of warbler in a morning while spending chunks of it looking for a Kentucky Warbler.

The Kentucky had been seen the previous day and stuck around the same place in Shakespeare Garden on the Saturday.  I was told it had not been seen in an hour, but Kentucky's often make regular circuits of the same terrain and vanish for quite some time between appearances.  I first saw it - a ventral view - scooting into a tree and dropping onto the ground whence it did a very Kentucky thing and vanished entirely.  Subsequently found by others it eventually ante'd up by perching on the fence and the semi-exposed rock.  Right on time, that Kentucky, in the last few days of April.

Also right on time was the Nashville in Strawberry Fields, the singing Prairie Warbler in the Upper Lobe and the Blue-winged singing on top of Shakespeare Garden.  Two of these were heard-only, but at least I found a Northern Parula near Belvedere Castle while being taunted by an elusive Black-throated Green.  Challenging Kentucky for the best bird of the day was a singing Orange-crowned Warbler in the big oak still standing in Maintenance Field.  Another decent bird was a Chestnut-sided Warbler also in the Maintenance Field.  Despite a warm winter and prematurely warm March the migrant timing is pretty much as expected - some early appearances but most of them are clamped by the need to fly a couple of thousand miles during spring.  Kind of tough to speed that up.  This is still a transitional stage in spring migration, as evidenced by more early spring species like Blue-headed Vireo and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, and Hermit Thrush as the only Catharus.

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Blue-headed Vireo
Barn Swallow
House Wren
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Hermit Thrush
Gray Catbird
Ovenbird
Northern Waterthrush
Blue-winged Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
Orange-crowned Warbler
Nashville Warbler
Kentucky Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Northern Parula
Yellow Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Palm Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Prairie Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Eastern Towhee

Negri-Nepote, pre-deluge, Apr 22nd

Yellow Warbler was singing from the neighborhood when I was getting ready to depart for Negri-Nepote despite threatening weather and a day's worth of rain headed up on the southerly winds.  It didn't quite make it to my yard list or my year list, since I never saw it and it didn't come quite close enough.

Instead, in heavy cloud and beginning drizzle I headed out to Negri-Nepote Grasslands (Franklin Twp) to check for shorebirds in the small pond there.  Field Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, Eastern Towhee, House Wren and Common Yellowthroat were all singing.  Along with four Mallard males in the pond were four breeding plumage Greater Yellowlegs, a nice find, and the real prize was a Pectoral Sandpiper at the back of the pond.  No Wilson's Snipe, recently reported here, but I don't usually see Pectoral until the fall.  As the rain started to fall I retreated to snag my first seen Common Yellowthroat for spring migration, close to the parking lot.

Central Park, Apr 21st

Apparently getting a little slow in my old age, I missed the 0612 train into Manhattan by 1 minute and spent 45 minutes at Princeton Institute Woods while waiting for the next one, which was if anything more productive than Central Park: heard but not seen Common Yellowthroats; singing Rose-breasted Grosbeak; singing Black-and-white Warbler; singing Gray Catbird; singing House Wren.  It was a little cool so activity only started to pick up while I was there.

The Ramble in Central Park was not having its best day, even allowing for the fact I got there an hour later than intended.  Strawberry Fields was quiet, there was a Northern Waterthrush feeding and singing in the small stream that flows under Balcony Bridge, but many areas in the Ramble were slow enough that I only spent about three hours there.  Yellow-rumped and Palm Warblers were still around, Black-and-white Warbler was a new addition for this migration, but it was notably slower than the previous weekend.  The woods at the North End was rather more productive, judging from reports (Worm-eating, Prothonotary).

Central Park, April 14th/15th

In a series of days with strong south-westerly wind components I did a rare mid-April "double" weekend, traveling by train into Manhattan on both Saturday and Sunday. Usually in mid April there's not enough volume of diversity to pull me in on both days.

While diversity was lacking, there was a lot of volume on both days. Warblers dominated Saturday but sparrows put in a good showing on Sunday. Multiple Louisiana Waterthrushes on both days, year firsts like Brown Creeper and Winter Wren, my House Wren early date for the north east, and Brown Thrasher my earliest date for the park by about 10 days. The aggregate list did not contain anything remarkable, but the number of birds for the middle of April was surely one of the best migration movements for that date I'd seen in years.

Also of note was a leucistic White-throated Sparrow that I saw in Strawberry Fields on both days (photos obtained on Sunday) which had a striking mostly-white head.

Double-crested Cormorant
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Northern Flicker
Blue-headed Vireo
House Wren
Winter Wren
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Hermit Thrush
Brown Thrasher
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Pine Warbler
Palm Warbler
Louisiana Waterthrush
Chipping Sparrow
Field Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Brown-headed Cowbird
American Goldfinch

A slice of spring at Princeton Institute Woods

An overcast day with north-westerlies led me to cancel a prospective trip into Central Park and stay locally, birding Princeton's Institute Woods. Activity levels were relatively low, but there were some signs of spring: singing male Pine Warbler; male Eastern Towhee; singing Eastern Phoebe; male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker; a pair of Wood Ducks. The Tree Swallows have moved into the pond in small numbers after it was refilled this week - the pump that maintains it was broken for a while and it had almost totally dried out. Some frogs have survived, but it remains to be seen if it can reach the traditionally deafening levels of frog singing that you can encounter on warm spring evenings.

Early migration at Plainsboro Preserve, March 24th

By far the best bird of the day was a breeding plumage adult eastern/yellow Palm Warbler seen relatively close to the visitor center as the main gravel trail walks back along the south edge of the old gravel pit. The other main evidence of spring was the return of Tree Swallows. Otherwise the preserve was relatively quiet - all the migrant geese have left, leaving just a few breeding Canadas and there was one Belted Kingfisher along the shoreline. The woods were predictably quiet, mainly Dark-eyed Juncos and White-throated Sparrows, with the diversity enlivened a bit by Northern Flicker and Eastern Bluebird.

Notable also were at least two Mourning Cloaks sunning themselves along sheltered parts of the main trail.

Sandy Hook

While waiting for real migration to arrive, I thought I'd try and pick off some late winter or very early spring species at Sandy Hook. I managed to find the only part of NJ that wasn't sunny and in the 60's this past Sunday - the wall of fog was literally staged at the Keyport bridge at the Sandy Hook ramp, so it was a cool 50's with limited visibility.

Chokeberry Lot: Long-tailed Duck, American Oystercatcher (First-of-year for me), Red-throated Loon and a single Surf Scoter (FOY). Thankfully an easy to ID male under those viewing conditions. Visibility into the ocean was very limited so I was only able to see ducks that were already closer to shore - a scope wasn't even that useful here since the visibility cut off before the birds got too small to ID via binoculars.

Sadly there was also a sick/injured Long-tailed Duck on the beach - it's too late in the year for a hunting injury but the bird could not fly, and if it had injured a wing it could not dive either. I told the Rangers about this and they seemed motivated to go take a look. These things happen, and Long-tailed Duck is a common species, but it's still a distressing thing to witness.

Visitor Center lot: Long-tailed Duck and some fly-by Red-breasted Mergansers. I didn't scan the bay side very much since it was contra light in this afternoon visit but I also saw Red-breasted Mergansers there.

North Beach: more American Oystercatcher pairs; more Long-tailed Ducks; two more Red-throated Loons; two more Surf Scoters; one Piping Plover (FOY).

Visitor Center Lot revisit: small group of Northern Gannets (adult) and three White-winged Scoters (FOY).

Brant were still in evidence but there were few to no American Black Ducks which have probably decamped for the saltmarshes now that it approaches breeding season. But the trip was good for Scoters - I have particular problem finding White-winged Scoters now that I don't visit Montauk Point (where you could find several thousand of each of the three species) and I hadn't seen Surf Scoter this year either. My alternate favorite location - Barnegat Inlet - isn't reliable for scoter species early in the year, although back in November I had all three species in the big diving duck flock.

The Month of Hope Denied impersonates April

My instinctive reaction to 70 degree days in early spring is to run, run to a migration hotspot and start tracking down Northern Parulas. However it's still mid March and there's barely a Parula north of Florida. So here we are in March, with a largely typical array of March migrants (Pine Warbler, Tree Swallow, Eastern Phoebe) in weather that we normally associate with the ramp-up of migration in mid-late April. I've been colder than this in May.

Since warblers in central America don't surf Accuweather for the boreal forest weather forecast, it seems likely that spring will be only a little early in terms of warbler migration - they still have to fly trans-Gulf and up the Atlantic coast before making it to NYC and it's not an overnight job. Warmer weather might accelerate that by a few days or a week. The birds that might turn up early would be things like Eastern Phoebe and Louisiana Waterthrush (and even N. Parula) that have significant continental wintering populations - things that you can see in FL in February. But migration is probably triggered by day length, so it's not like the rest of the genus formerly known as Dendroica (now Setophaga) is going to turn up four weeks early. Even Fox Sparrow migration doesn't seem to be at full bore right now (although they may simply have overwintered further north this year) - on time migration should be the next three weeks.


So in the interim I've been waiting out the good weather and going to see the flock of Rusty Blackbirds in Bristol PA or watching the gull flock dwindle in Levittown PA.

Woodcocks and Rusty Blackbirds

Gale force winds on Saturday deferred birding to Sunday, hitting mostly local sites.

Falls Twp Community Park held four Iceland Gulls - this time I was sure they were all Iceland since some gull flock flushing by dog walkers made it such that I could see all their heads and bills at some point. No Glaucous, but approximately six adult Lesser Black-backed Gulls.

I visited the nearby Silver Lake Nature Center in adjacent Bristol PA - a place I didn't even know existed until I was scouting around for Rusty Blackbird reports on Sunday morning - and it was a nicely maintained wooded area with trails bordering wetlands and Silver Lake itself. An area across the road that I didn't explore was labeled as swamp/wet woodland. In places the habitat was rather reminiscent of the Ramble in Central Park, complete with traffic noise. Walking the trails there was the normal semi-suburban species: Downy/Hairy/Red-bellied Woodpeckers, one Northern Flicker, one Carolina Wren, Chickadees and Titmice. The Hairy was actually a year bird for me. Then in the phragmites near the stream I picked up Red-winged Blackbirds and then the first Rusty Blackbird. I had good timing here since a moving flock of 25 Rusty Blackbirds came past me near the observation deck, and one or two males were actually singing. Most birds were in or near breeding plumage. After they went past I never saw them again, so I was quite lucky - and 25 was flagged as a high count by eBird. 25 Rusties is probably more than I've seen in the last 5+ years combined, and perhaps my highest count ever. This is a species that is in fairly rapid decline in the north east. Icing on the cake was a Fox Sparrow (also first-of-year) in with the White-throated Sparrows.

This place is certainly worth another look as spring picks up, although it remains to be seen if it's a migrant hotspot - Bristol is dense suburbia but nothing is as dense as Manhattan.

The afternoon was spent in an out-and-back push to Point Pleasant where two visits failed to come up with the Razorbill in the inlet (seen earlier in the day) and the ocean was also quiet with two species of Loons, one fly-by Gannet and a mere handful of Long-tailed Ducks.

The end of a pretty good birding day was at dusk at my traditional Woodcock spot in Central NJ where I listened to at least 3 males peenting (one was so close I almost jumped), making display flights, and making the grumbling call while flying around the area, sometimes chasing each other. Probably the mild winter would make for a strong breeding season this year, since most would have survived to spring.