Green Heron at work

apparently, fish tickle when you swallow them

A Green Heron showed up at Azalea Pond in Central Park on Thursday, and spent the day happily fishing. It was a good close look--the bird spent most of its time on a small fallen branch only a few feet from the pond's edge.

It was the smallest Green Heron I've ever seen. They're supposed to be 15-18 inches long, but I think this one was barely a foot. It seemed to be OK, though. Maybe it's just young.

When resting, it looked like it had almost no neck.

But when it got interested in something...

..it would stretch out and get it right quick.

After that, it would swallow the fish and do that ruffled-feathers thing in the top photo.

I watched the heron work for quite a while.



Time well-spent, I think.

Perils of ear birding

So the other day, I was at east end of Turtle Pond, contemplating gong to the Ramble. Then I hear a bird singing somewhere on the north shore, couldn't tell if it was in the reeds on the shoreline, or in a tree. "Pizza pizza!" it called, high and crisp. "Pizza pizza!"

That was odd. What sings like that? It was the wrong cadence for an Acadian Flycatcher--too quick and not squeaky enough. It wasn't a Titmouse's sharp "peter peter" or an Ovenbird's eager "teachER teachER". Must be some bird whose song I don't know--no shortage of those. So I circled around to check it out.

It was down in the reeds at the water's edge. I couldn't even see the plants moving, just heard the song. The bird was moving west. I followed it, threading my way among sunbathers and picnickers on the lawn. I wonder what they thought I was doing.

After about twenty yards and twenty minutes, it flew out for a moment. Little bird, brown back, maybe some kind of light streak on the back of the head? A flash and back into the reeds. Some kind of wren?

It stayed hidden, but moved a little faster. Only a few minutes later we were nearly at the west edge. There are a couple of pines there, and then a pier. It wouldn't be able to move under cover much longer.

So it didn't. The bird went back east, singing all the way. I spared a glance at the warblers in the pines, and followed again. I really wanted to know who this bird was.

We got back to the place where it flew out before. It did it again, but this time went up into a tree. Aha! I got my binoculars up fast.

A Common Yellowthroat? What, now? They don't sing like that, they sing a rapid, light "Wichita Wichita Wichita Wichita".

"What the hell, little bird?" I said to him. "That's not your song."

"Pizza Pizza!" The Yellowthroat replied, and dove back into the reeds.

A blue bird of happiness

I'm still working up a post about the various Empidonax flycatchers I saw the other day. In the meantime--Saturday morning I saw a report of an Eastern Bluebird in a meadow quite near the West 81st Street entrance to Central Park. Bluebirds are common in many places, but visit Manhattan only during migration and not in any numbers. I'm lucky to see one or two a year here, so I went to check it out.

Alas, I did not see the Bluebird. I think the increased activity in that part of the park as the morning went on probably made it seek a quieter meadow--there's plenty of suitable places in the park for a Bluebird to forage.

I did get to see a couple of warblers quite close up at Tanner's Spring nearby, including the female Black-Throated Blue Warbler shown above. She was all of four or five feet away from me. This species tends to be pretty confiding, but I've never been close enough to see the traces of blue on the female's head before.

The books generally call the female Black-Throated Blue "drab". I think that's a gorgeous little bird, myself.

Kentucky Warbler

Wednesday morning, I saw a report online of a Kentucky Warbler in the Tanner's Spring area.

The Kentucky Warbler is a member of a small group of very secretive, ground-hugging warblers that used to be all in the genus Oporornis until the splitters got to work on it. But I digress. Anyway, the members of the group--the Connecticut, Mourning, and Kentucky Warblers, and the western MacGillivray's Warbler--are notoriously difficult to find, even when you know where they are.

In fact, I'd never seen a Kentucky Warbler, so off I went in pursuit.

When I entered the park, I saw a group  people with binoculars and big cameras looking into the vegetation just north of the Diana Ross Playground, always a good sign that there's a bird down there--and surprisingly shortly thereafter, the little skulking bird popped into view.

Kentucky Warbler!

I've now seen 34 of the 36 warbler species that normally occur in this part of the country, missing only the Connecticut and the Golden-Winged.

The Kentucky continued for a while poking along under the plants and occasionally popping up for a photo op. Eventually, I decided to escape the press of the crowd watching it, and went to nearby Tanner's Spring, where only one other birder was watching a great variety of birds coming down to drink and bathe.

Chestnut-Sided Warbler and Gray Catbird at Tanner's Spring

Elsewhere in the park there were a lot of Canada Warblers

O, Canada!

and more Swainson's Thrushes than I can recall seeing in one day before.

When you look at the Swainson's Thrush, the Swainson's Thrush also looks back at you.

Besides the Kentucky Warbler, the other notable rarities in the Park on Wednesday were Mourning Warblers reported in several locations (and I couldn't find any of them, darn skulky birdies), and a Bicknell's Thrush found by David Barrett at Strawberry fields.

Bicknell's Thrush winters in a few isolated spots in the Caribbean and breeds only on a few mountaintops in upper New York State, New England, and Ontario. It is not distinguishable from the Gray-Cheeked Thrush except by song--and I've listened to recordings of both, and I can't distinguish them that way either. So I decided not to chase a bird I can't ID.

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The Kentucky Warbler was my 161st species of the year in New York County It was also my 202nd life-list species in the county according to eBird--number 200 was the Summer Tanager--but that list includes a couple of obvious escaped birds (Budgerigar and Yellow-fronted Canary), so the Kentucky is my "real" 200th life bird here.

(The list also includes European Goldfinch, but that bird was flocking with House Finches the whole winter of 2012-2013 after first being seen in spring 2012, and I don't see why it couldn't have been a true accidental. So I'm counting it.)

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Thursday had more reports of Mourning Warblers, and a lot of Empidonax flycatchers (including Acadian and Yellow-Bellied). I'll write about them later.

Three days

Tuesday there were apparently two Red-Headed Woodpeckers in Central Park. One was reported by Anders Peltomaa early in the morning at the Great Lawn, moving north, and the second was in the Ramble. I glimpsed the second east of Evodia, in the same trees that last May's Red-Headed liked. It flew off quickly towards Azalea Pond, but I guessed that it would return, which it did, at least for a few seconds about 15 minutes later.

Red-Headed Woodpecker

Then it disappeared again, and this time did not come back for the hour I waited in hopes of a better photo.

The Ramble was otherwise moderately birdy. I had a nice view of a female Black-Throated Blue Warbler having lunch.

Mmm.. Tasty!

The Red-Headed Woodpecker is my 160th species of the year in New York County. Aside from that, the only rarity I've heard about in Manhattan is a very late Pied-Billed Grebe on the Reservoir.

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Monday was rather slow in the park--28 species, only four warblers. My highlights were a very cooperative Eastern Kingbird near Greywacke Arch:

The Kingbird is not afraid of a peasant like you

and a nice view of a female Indigo Bunting drinking in the Gill.

the subdued elegance of a female Indigo Bunting

Female Indigos tend to be difficult. They're a bit skulky, and somewhat non-descript. This one, though, came out in the open and had a nice warm brown look overall, with a bit of blue in the tail, so she was fairly easy to ID.

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Sunday I went up to Riverdale to take my aunts out to lunch. I rewarded myself for the good deed by birding in Van Cortlandt Park for a couple of hours afterward. I have never heard so many Warbling Vireos in my life--easily over a dozen, including several doing song battles, one of them a three-way fight.

The vireos stayed pretty well hidden, but I did see a loudly singing House Wren.

House Wren, belting out the hits

Also, the Ring-Necked drake was still on Van Cortlandt Lake, where he's been hanging out since at least late March. He's pretty decisively taken himself out of the mating game for this year.

Tweeting about birds

Twitter has made it a lot easier to find good birds in Manhattan. Birders are naturally helpful, but before the digital age, helping was done retailretail--telling one person at a time where the birds are. Things began to change in the 1990s with mailing lists, and in the last couple of years there's been an explosion of text alert systems and Twitter use. The #birdcp hashtag is widely used by Manhattan birders now.

Saturday, as I headed to the park, I saw a #birdcp tweet from Roy Tsao that a Blackburnian Warbler was singing in the elms near Cleopatra's Needle. I wanted to go visit the magic beech tree at nearby Greywacke Arch anyway, so I went there. Roy showed me the tree and described the bird's behavior before going on his way. It was about 25 minutes before the bird showed up--I heard a high tsip-a tsip-a song, and found him well up near the trunk. The photos will need some work, so let me show you one of my older Blackburnian photos instead.

That's what I'm talking about!

The Greywacke area was otherwise pretty quiet, as was Turtle Pond. I was able to show and tell a few people about where the Blackburnian was. When I saw another tweet, this time about a Common Nighthawk Eric O. had found roosting high up a tree near the High Meadow in the North Woods, off I went.

One problem was, I didn't know where the High Meadow is. I don't think it's called that on any map. But Karen Fung (who had tweeted the report) was able to give me directions on Twitter, and when I neared the area, another helpful birder pointed me to the right place to stand to see the Nighthawk.

Common Nighthawk, chillin'

The Common Nighthawk is my 159th species in New York County this year.

Slowdown

The last few days of migration have been much slower. Wednesday I was up in the north end of the park; a tree at the south end of Harlem Meer had nine species of warbler (Magnolia, Yellow, Wilson's, Chestnut-Sided, Black-Throated Blue, Black-Throated Green, Yellow-Rumped, and Blackpoll Warblers, and American Redstart), but that was the busiest spot of the week by a long way. Up at the compost area on the Mount the Solitary Sandpipers were gone, bit I had a nice view of a Lincoln's Sparrow up in a tree.

The find of the day was a female Mourning Warbler near the north end of the Loch. She came hopping out of the vegetation on the east side of the stream and came down to the water's edge, long enough for me to see the complete hood extending onto the breast, bright yellow underparts, and very thin eyering; and then as I tried to get my camera focused, a group of schoolkids came noisily along and the bird flushed to the west side of the stream, well back in the bushes, and I never picked it up again. Neither did anyone else, as far as I know.

A nice bird, but I found it very frustrating. I hate being the only person to see a good bird. I especially hate it when I don't even get a photo. I think I have a good reputation for being a reliable reporter, so when I report something that turns out unfindable and I don't have documentation, it eats at me. You know what they say: "oh, well".

Thursday, I went out a little too early and got rather damp. But there was a White-Crowned Sparrow right on the path at the north end of the meadow north of the King Jagiello ("Poland") monument at the east end of Turtle Pond. Best view of that bird I've ever had.

totally worth getting soaked for

My only new bird of the day was a Bay-Breasted Warbler, up in the big beech tree by Greywacke Arch (which is the underpass under the East Drive at the bottom of that same meadow). That's a fairly hard-to-get bird as well, but at least I have some crappy photos of it. The crappy photos were frankly needed to even ID the bird--it was a terrible view, high in the tree and backlit all to hell and back by the bright overcast sky after the rain stopped.

In the Ramble, an Indigo Bunting sang briefly at Evodia, and a Common Yellowthroat there gave a longer concert.

Common Yellowthroat, tearin' up the stage

and several warblers and a Lincoln's Sparrow were on the Point. One Chestnut-Sided Warbler was especially confiding:

why couldn't I get a shot like this of the Mourning Warbler?

Friday was very slow. I had expected a lot of birds to arrive ahead of the rain, but that didn't happen. We'll see whether good things happen after the storm.