Cerulean!

Cerulean!

Tuesday night had winds from the west, and as I hoped, that meant that the migratory birds in Central Park mostly stayed put.  So I wasn't surprised when, over breakfast, I saw a note online: "Cerulean refound by Kyu Lee at Bow Bridge".

So off I went, and shortly after I showed up at Bow Bridge, so did The Bird.

Another view of the star attraction

I thought I hadn't gotten any good photos, but these don't look too bad.  It was a good thing that I got there when I did, because the cerulean then disappeared for six hours or so, and when it showed up (at Warbler Rock, maybe a hundred feet northeast of the bridge), it was 'way high up.

The winds look unfavorable for migration again tonight, so we may all get another chance to see the Cerulean tomorrow.

Having gotten a look at the Cerulean, I was free to go off and look for the Prairie Warbler people had been seeing on the Point.  Finding it proved a little more challenging than I expected from the reports, but while I was waiting, I saw a nice Blue-Headed Vireo.

Blue-Headed Vireo, singing: "Here I am! Up in this tree! Don't look at me!"

Eventually the Prairie came out and was very cooperative about posing.

Prairie Warbler, ready for a screen test

Despite the poor winds, some birds did come in--I saw several other Blue-Headed Vireos, many Yellow-Rumped Warblers, and Palm Warblers were just everywhere.

One of the crowd

The Cerulean is a life bird for me (my 199th in New York County), and the prairie is my first of the year, making 106 species for the year.

Favorable winds

Gentle southerly winds overnight brought a few new species into Central Park on Tuesday morning. The big news was a male Cerulean Warbler spotted by Miriam (whose last name I don't know) at the Gill just south of Azalea Pond about 11:30am.  She was sitting on a bench watching birds coem down to bathe, and a Cerulean came down to eye level.

Unfortunately, only a couple of other people got to see the bird before he went back up into the treetops, as a Cerulean does.  I wasn't one of the lucky ones.  I found out about the bird when I got to the Azalea Pond around noon, and stayed  in the area for an hour and a half.  As far as I know, nobody saw the bird again.

Also reported were a pair of Purple Finches and a Northern Waterthrush, but I didn't see them either. Also a Savannah Sparrow at Maintenance meadow--this one I did get:

a very confiding Savannah Sparrow

A very cooperative bird. A group of birders stood off about 25 feet or so, not wanting to disturb it as it went about its lawful sparrow business foraging in the grass. It gradually worked its way closer until it was about 10 or 12 feet away. This is by far the best look I've ever gotten at a Savannah. Charming little bird.

In addition to the new species, a lot of birds from already-present species came in overnight. There were quite a few Yellow-Rumped Warblers (which I saw while looking for the Cerulean), Palm and Pine Warblers, a Blue-headed Vireo, and a number of Hermit Thrush. I did see a warbler, high up, a dull yellow breast with dark streaks; maybe a female Yellow Warbler, but not a good enough view to say for sure.

Most of the recently-seen species were still around, even if not in greater numbers.

Remember how I said in the last post that I didn't have any good photos of House Wrens? That's fixed now:

House Wren in action

While migration is just getting into swing, some resident birds have gotten down to the business of nesting:

Spring!

Wrens cheer me up

I find the sight of a wren immensely cheering, somehow. They're such purposeful and determined little birds: subtle, active, hard to follow. They don't have the sublime obliviousness of kinglets and gnatcatchers, who live at such a pace that to them we are just slightly unstable geological features, of no concern and no threat; they don't have the skittishness of sparrows and warblers, many of which will scatter if you look at them too hard. The wrens have a healthy skepticism about us, but remain determined to go about their lawful wren business.

Migration is still slow here, but there were a few birds out on the Point. Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher, Yellow-Rumped and Pine Warblers, Ruby-Crowned Kinglet.

my best photo of the day: Yellow-Rumped (Myrtle) Warbler

I took a few photographs, and when I was getting ready to leave, I caught motion out of the corner of my eye, a little brown blur in a tree right by the water. It proved to be a House Wren, my first of the year. I enjoyed watching it busily flitting across the ground and up and down shrubs. After some time, it decided that the end of the Point was a bit too noisy, what with all the rowboats going by, and took off, gone like a shot.

I'm not thrilled with this, but it turns out I have no great photos of a House Wren

House Wren is the 104th species of the year for me. The winds look a little better tonight, so I'm hoping that we'll finally get some more warblers tomorrow.

Green Heron

not the Easter Heron

It was a slow week--mostly northerly winds, not favorable for migratory movements--though I picked up a couple of new species for the year. Northern Rough-Winged Swallows were at Turtle Pond Monday, and a male Common Yellowthroat was under the willow at the Upper Lobe on Wednesday. Those are both normal species for Central Park.

I went up to the Bronx for Easter. I saw on my phone that a Green Heron had been seen in the willow tree at the end of Point in Central Park early in the morning. That's a pretty good bird for the park; I see one or maybe two a year. So although I didn't think it would still be around when I got back to Manhattan late in the afternoon--on a beautiful Easter Sunday, there would be rowboats all over the Lake to disturb it--I needed to at least look.

So it wasn't there. People out on the Point were watching a male Yellow-Rumped Warbler, about the only warbler around the last few days. Nice-looking bird.

I swung around to Willow Rock, and I ran into a birder named Ginny--and she had spotted the Heron in a willow tree there. Perfectly logical place for the bird to wind up, but it was very well-hidden. Very good spotting, that was.

My photos of this bird are uninspiring--it was really well-screened by branches--so I'm showing off a nice photo I took of of a Green Heron at Azalea Pond a few years ago.

The Green Heron is my 103rd species of the year in New York County.

Photo interlude

I didn't go anywhere interesting today. Nothing much came in today that I heard about--maybe a few more Black-and-White Warblers out on the Point--so here's a few recent photos I haven't put on the blog already.

Cedar Waxwings, I love their little pot bellies.

It's easy to overlook what a good-looking bird a White-Throated Sparrow is.

The drab Pine Warbler that spent most of the winter in the Ramble hasn't been seen in a while. I guess that's another story whose ending I'll never know.

We're still seeing the Baltimore Orio;les who overwintered near Evodia, though. I assume this male will have his pick of the best nesting areas, since there won't be any others for another week or two yet.

I wonder if this Ring-Necked drake I saw the other week is the one who was on the Reservoir during the winter. That one liked to pal arounmd with Mallards, too.

The "kwirr!" call of the Red-Bellied Woodpecker is a common sound in the Ramble now.

It's that time of year...

"In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove"

"In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love"

But eventually the poetry of passion gives way to the prose of family life

Surprisingly slow

Sunday and Monday were beautiful days, after nights of steady southerly winds; Tuesday came up gloomy and rainy, but again after a night of good winds.

Rainy Day Robin #12

Despite three nights of favorable winds, few migrating birds came into Central Park. There are still Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers, mostly on the Point.

Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher

Ruby-Crowned Kinglets are also still around; the Golden-Crowneds seem to have mostly moved on. There are Pine and Palm Warblers, and a couple of Yellow-Rumped Warblers, but no others; except one report of a Prairie Warbler near Turtle Pond. But I'm told that one of the birding guides played recordings of Prairie Warbler songs "to bring it in closer" until the stressed bird escaped elsewhere.

Swallows are coming in, however; Tree and Northern Rough-Winged Swallows at Turtle Pond on Monday, and today one Tree Swallow and a very small, fluttery, brown swallow that from the size and flight style might be a Bank Swallow. On the other hand, Bank is highly unusual in the park, and they don't tend to travel singly, so perhaps not. I couldn't get my binoculars on it for more than a tenth of a second, so I didn't get any field marks.

At Evodia on Monday I saw an extremely pretty female Red-Winged Blackbird. The females are usually quite reclusive. Unfortunately, a female Brown-Headed Cowbird was hanging around with it. That's not good news.

Soap opera in progress