A Grand Day Out

Sunday I trekked out to Randall's Island to look for a Barnacle Goose that had been reported there on Saturday. A Barnacle Goose, if an actual wild bird (as this appears to be), is a very rare find in New York. When I arrived at the north end of the island, I quickly located the bird, foraging on the exposed mud of the channel north of the island with a flock of 150 or so Canada Geese and a couple of Brant. They took to the water shortly after.

Barnacle Goose amid Canada Geese, Randall's Island

After taking some photos, I scanned the vicinity for whatever else might be around. I saw a group of Red-Breasted Mergansers out in the main stream of the East River, and with them, a diving bird that didn't look like one of them, but they were too far off to make anything of it.

My attention was diverted when a small group of geese, the Barnacle, took off and flew to the nearby baseball field just south and east of the path. The snow was relatively thin there, and they foraged on the exposed grass.

They were soon joined by others, including a Brant, who was about the same size as the Barnacle. I could never get a clear view of them together for a photo. (More Barnacle photos are at http://edgaillard.smugmug.com/Bird-ID/Barnacle-Goose-2014-01-26/36570981_QBpfWJ)

Another birder told me some Snow Buntings were present on the northeast shore between field 31 and the shore, so after having my fill of the Barnacle, I headed off that way. I stopped just east of the saltmarsh first to have another look around.

The mergansers and the odd bird were a little closer, though still quite distant. I could see that the odd diver was a little smaller.

It turned into the light a bit more, and I saw it had a larger and very pointy bill, and a strong face pattern. But I still had no idea what it was. It didn't match anything in a quick flip through my Peterson.

The diver them moved off towards the Bronx shore east of the <i.Post</i> building, and I moved off to find the Buntings.

I think this is the Red-Necked Grebe reported by Angus Young the same day. That's another very nice bird for New York. My photos are all poor because of distance, but I've put all the legible ones in a set: http://edgaillard.smugmug.com/Bird-ID/Red-Necked-Grebe-2014-01-26/36571263_VpcqMc. All those are radically cropped, but otherwise straight from the camera; the ones above have had their brightness and contrast boosted as well.

The Snow Buntings, four of them, were where they were supposed to be. When I came up, they were foraging on the grass.

A snowplow drove past the area, and they flushed into a small tree along the shore and eyed me suspiciously.

I moved on south. The marsh area at Little Hell Gate Inlet was sparse--a few ducks and geese, and a Downy Woodpecker frantically working on a small tree branch. The "Water's Edge Garden" area between the inlet and the Ward's Island Bridge had a lot of Canada Geese and the usual gulls, but nothing very special.

By the time I got to the bridge, the weather--which had been pleasant though cold--had turned cloudy and dampish. I considered just crossing the bridge and heading home, but decide to have a look at the south shore first. And I'm glad I did, because there, near a small flock of geese, was a Horned Grebe.

Horned Grebes are perfectly nice birds, but their eyes make them look like demon-birds from Hell.

I watched him swim and dive for a while as it began to snow.

Finally it got quite unpleasant as the snow began to blow hard, so I retreated across the bridge and made my way home.

Barnacle Goose, Red-Necked Grebe, and Horned Grebe are all life birds for me, and boost my New York County total for the year to 65.

What I learned today

I'm sentimental. I worry about the little birds in the cold weather. Especially, I've been worried about the Carolina Wrens in Central Park this winter, so today I trudged out in the mid-teen temperatures to the Ramble, with a bag of blueberries.

Blueberries? Yes. Wrens are basically insectivores, but will eat fruit (they can use the glucose); nuts or seeds, not so much. Their guts are not set up to deal with extracting nutrition from plant matter (no gizzard, for one thing). In extreme need, they can eat some very oily seeds like sunflower, crunching it up to get the oils. At, least, that's what I'd been told. So, since we had some blueberries...

At Evodia, Sol told me that at least one wren had been visiting and begging food. He showed up in a few minutes.

Hey, buddy, spare some food for a wren?

And I tossed a few berries on the ground in front of him, and Sol threw out--a handful of crushed peanuts.

The bird eyed the blueberries suspiciously, grabbed a hunk of peanut, and retreated.

The same scene repeated a little later. So now I know a Carolina Wren will choose peanuts over blueberries.

Elsewhere in the Ramble, it was pretty much the usual crew. I watched a young Red-Tailed scouting the area for prey.

This and that

I walked all the way around Randall's Island on Sunday. There were a lot of Red-Breasted mergansers on the southern shoreline.



A note for anyone thinking of visiting Randall's: some of the pedestrian paths marked on the map don't look much like paths when you're walking on them. There's a path running under the Hell Gate Bridge approach that isn't really passable in spots.

I finally made my way to the freshwater marsh near the Little Hell Gate Inlet. There's a path into the middle of it, which does not go through, so I backtracked to Central avenue and walked on the west side of the wetland. I heard a loud, low-pitched chack call, and scanned the tall grass.

There was a Rusty Blackbird clinging to a reed--a male, black with a lot of rusty feather edging, especially on the head and back. He spotted me as I raised my camera and took off in a looping flight up and over the Hell Gate approach road, coming down somewhere in the water treatment plant area. My 62nd species this year in NY county.

The north end of the island had a massive flock of over 300 Brant.

Monday, I went to Central Park. Lots of Downy Woodpeckers around Evodia. The Baltimore Orioles remain there as well. I think the second oriole is an immature male, because the adult male bird basically dominates it, chasing it away for the feeders over and over.

Brown Creeper chaser

In the tradition of Boing Boing's "Unicorn Chasers", here's a Brown Creeper:



The two very confiding creepers were at Evodia today, and also two Black-Capped Chickadees, which I think is the first time I've seen two in the same place this winter. They were flying back and forth between the Gill source path and the westernmost feeder at Evodia, and quite talkative.

I didn't get good photos of them, because the focusing on my Panasonic GX7 kept refusing to settle on them. On the plus side, once the focus grabbed onto a tree ten or fifteen yards away, and showed be the four Cedar Waxwings roosting there. That wasn't a good photo either, but it was my 61st species in New York County this year.

Nature, red in et cetera, continued

Here's the two crows squabbling over a dead rat, as I mentioned a couple of days ago:



And a link to the crow enjoying his snack.

Nature, red in beak and talon

The Canvasbacks were gone from the Reservoir today. The group of Wood Ducks was still around, minus one drake:



And the Ring-Necked Duck is still around:



On the northern end of the Reservoir, I watched a female Hooded Merganser dive and come up with a crawfish:



And then I headed over to the Pool. On the way, I spotted a red-Tailed hawk perched high in a tree. I took a couple of photos, and then looked around and saw Karen Fung photographing something in another tree. She has followed a diving Red-Tailed Hawk from the Reservoir, and it was now enjoying a meal on a low perch:



I got a bunch of great shots of him dining, but some are not for the squeamish.

At the Pool, I had two first-of-year sightings, a Swamp Sparrow and a Brown Thrasher.



The sparrow was too deep in the shadows for a decent photo. Those two, plus a female Towhee on the eerily quiet Great Hill, get me up to 60 species for the year in New York County.

Crow feast; Northern Flicker; Canvasbacks

Today at Strawberry Field in central Park, I saw three crows fly into a tree. One was carrying what appeared to be a small rat, and set about eating it. One of the others tried half-heartedly to take it away. perhaps I will post a gruesome picture later.

A Flicker had been in the tree when the crows arrived, and split the scene immediately. It took up residence in a sapling nearby and sat there giving alarm cries. As it happens, it was my first Flicker of the year.

Later, I was told of Canvasbacks in the southeast corner of the reservoir. Canvasbacks are rare visitors to the Park, and really to Manhattan in general, so off I went. They were there, two drakes, sleeping peacefully. One woke up briefly when he found himself surrounded by Buffleheads for a moment, and I could see his distinctive sloping profile. But that was a good quarter-hour after sunset, so the photo is not very useful.

That puts me at 57 species in New York County this year.