The Wren Rescue

Our Carolina Wren, the day before

I went to Central Park this afternoon. It was blustery and cold, though sunny. As I left Maintenance meadow in the Ramble, I ran into Ranger Rob Mastrianni and two other Park workers. "I have a wren in my bag", Rob said.

One of the Carolina Wrens who has been around the Evodia feeders this winter was acting listless--not feeding and seemingly unable to fly--and the birders watching the feeders called Rob, and Rob spirited the little bird away to the Wild Bird Fund. Hopefully our little friend will recover well. At least he's somewhere warm now.

The afternoon was otherwise pretty uneventful. An American Tree Sparrow was at the feeders with the usual residents, but I didn't see the Pine Warbler who was observed earlier in the day. I walked around a while, looking at likely spots for Woodcocks, but none presented themselves.

Mockingbird, come out to glare at me

When I first entered the park at Cedar Hill, I heard an odd song--a phrase of two high notes, repeated at intervals of a few seconds--coming from Near the Transverse, near the path between Cedar Hill and the south side of the Metropolitan Museum. I had a notion of what it was, stopped and approached the trees along the Transverse to see if I could get a look. Eventually the Mockingbird--for that was indeed who it was--came out to glare at me for getting too close to his tree. Hello, bird!

Killdeer, Randall's island

Yesterday, I went up to Randall's Island, mostly to look for the Killdeer that had been reported the day before. The report had been that the bird was on the grass of the baseball fields. Indeed, most of the snow had melted, but the Kildeer was not there. At the saltmarsh on the north end, I saw Song Sparrows and a Swamp Sparrow, and heard three more sparrows I didn't recognize. One gave a long fast trill--like a Junco but faster, and with a sharp up note at the end; it was quite loud, I think the bird may actually have been on the Bronx side of the channel. Another had a monotonous single high fluting tweet, repeated at intervals of a second or two for a minute. The third called do-TWEE-TWEE-do; that was probably just another Song Sparrow. None showed itself in the twenty minutes or so I waited.

The fields were occupied by a large number of Canada Geese and Brant. I walked all around the northeast shore and fields, and finally returned to the saltmarsh area. It was lucky I did so, because it was while observing the marsh from a vantage next to the (closed off) footbridge to the Bronx that I saw movement on the mudflat below.



The Killdeer blended amazingly well with the mud and rocks, and walked quickly over the mudflat. I had a hard time getting a photo, because when I lowered my binoculars and brought up the camera, it disappeared. I did finally get some pictures. As you can see, they weren't great--the bird was at some distance, far enough that I couldn't tell if it ever gave the loud call that gives it both the common name "Killdeer" and the Latin name Charadrius vociferus ("loudmouth plover").

The Killdeer was my 70th sopecies in New York County this year.

Great Cormorant taking off

Here's a Great Cormorant I saw off the south shore of Randall's Island the other day.



Note the white patch on the flank. I believe that's diagnostic, as is the white around the base of the bill.

I got a nice series of the takeoff, which I did not expect to work; the little Panasonic GX7 performed admirably. If only I could get it to focus on small birds in branches more consistently...

Common Loon

I wound up spending 5 hours on Randall's Island today. I'm too wiped out to sort through photos just yet. There are still Snow Buntings on the northeast shore; I saw the Horned Lark again in the southeast near the Triboro Bridge; and there was a Common Loon off the southwest shore, a hundred yards or so south of the Ward's Island Bridge. From the road 20 yards away, I noticed a large bird very close to shore, thought "isn't that a loon?", got my glasses on it, noted the huge bill and the transitional plumage (dull winter head, but the back starting to look like the breeding "checkerboard" pattern), and then it dove--and as far as I saw, never came up. I think it must have surfaced north of the bridge.

Anyway, Common Loon! My 69th species in New York county this year.

Horned Lark, Randall's Island

Anya Auerbach reported a Horned Lark in the southeast part of Randall's Island two days ago, and that was enough to drag me to the island on this grey morning.

I came over the Ward's Island Bridge and walked along the south shore.  The tide was coming in fast.  You could see the hard currents that gave this stretch of the East River the name Hell Gate.

A half-dozen Brant flew past me from the east, landed a little offshore at the start of one of the more obvious flows, and floated back east.  Then they flew back and did it again.  They seemed to be doing this just for the enjoyment.

Just north of the Triboro Bridge, in a small pine near the shore, I saw a little movement.  There it was!

A Horned Lark.  It came down from the tree, poked around in the snow for a minute, and flew off west into Field 74.  I wouldn't have thought a brown bird could disappear so easily on a snowy field, but it did.

Shortly after that, as I walked past the Scylla Playground, it started to rain seriously, so I made my way past the freshwater marsh near Little Hell Gate inlet to the nearest bus stop.  I'll check the northeast shore again some nicer day.

Horned Lark is my 68th species in New York County this year.

Lazy weekend

Eastern Towhee in the Shakespeare Garden

Sorry for the lack of posts. I had a lazy weekend.

Sunday an American-Tree Sparrow was reported at the Evodia feeders, so I went out to see if it was still there. I was there for an hour or so, and it didn't show up. I had a nice time seeing the other winter residents--the Baltimore orioles were there, along with Brown Creeper, White-Breasted Nuthatch, Carolina Wren, Downy Woodpeckers, and the usual Juncos, House Finches, Goldfinches, White-Throated sparrows, House Sparrows, and Grackles.

I took a walk around the Ramble, but luckily I came back just in time to see a little rufous-capped sparrow foraging with Juncos and Whte-Throateds:

American Tree Sparrow (in the back), and friends

So that's my 67th species in the county this year.

I walked through the Shakespeare Garden on my way out of the park. That was uneventful until I saw a small flock of mixed sparrows, joined by a Brown Thrasher and the very confiding Towhee at the top of this post.  He was maybe 8 feet away from me when I took that shot.

There's been a Red-Shouldered Hawk reported several times in the past week in Central Park, but I haven't seen it.

Anya Auerbach reported a Horned Lark on Randall's Island today, also with Red-Necked Grebe, Common Goldeneye, Common Loon and others. If it doesn't snow all day tomorrow, I may chase those.

Pine Warbler reported in Central Park

In keeping with the name of the blog, I am happy to share with you a rumor of a warbler. On Sunday, Angus Wilson reported a Pine Warbler on ebird. Marie Winn's blog ran a slightly expanded version of Angus' report: "Around 1:30 this afternoon, I noticed a dull-colored PINE WARBLER feeding appropriately enough in a pine close to the King Jagiello (Poland) Monument in Central Park. It flew south towards the Maintenance Meadow."

That's the same behavior I saw in my first warbler of the year on January 3, a bird I IDed as an extraordinarily dull Yellow-Rumped Warbler. I doubt it's the same bird. Surely somebody would have seen it in between.

Anyway, there you have it. Warbler! Six weeks from now or so, we'll be covered in them. I hope.