Northern Parula
As well as the hawkwatch I’m helping out with a few other events at Audubon Greenwich. You can find out about them using their calendar (online here). The next event is the walk for fall warbler identification, part of a series of workshops I am doing on fall bird identification. October see me taking a closer look at sparrows and hawks. Hope to see some of you for them.
Northern Wheatear - Mike Warner
Just thought I’d post a record shot of the Northern Wheatear from Allen’s this morning. Great find by Mike Warner, Penny Solum and Tina Green at my old patch. Thanks to Mike for the photo. Glad someone had the sense to get a shot of it – I forgot my camera when I went down. I broke my not twitching non-lifers rule for the day but it is Allen’s Meadows after all! It was even a rather horrifically ‘tick and run’ kind of twitch as well, as Brian O’Toole and I were in and out in less than 20 minutes before winging our way back to work. The Lark Sparrow making it a Two fer Thursday. Another incredible set of birds for Allen’s! Nice find by Matt Hoyt with the Lark creating the old picnic table effect!
A Rhianna cover of all things and not one of her finer moments either!
As part of a talk on nocturnal migration at Audubon Greenwich which I did with Benjamin Van Doren, I recorded a few handheld digiscoped moonwatching videos. A couple of the better ones (relatively speaking) are now up on youtube. Not great but kind of fun. I think there are 5 or 6 birds in the first video – try and spot them all. Most of the cool links stuff that we mentioned in the talk are now on Ben’s Blog (click here). Some of his sound recordings of nocturnal migrants from Audubon Greenwich will be up in a day or two.
Classic tune from the bird music playlist!
Peregrine Falcon - Luke Tiller
Not much sign of migration at the little park this morning just a couple of Blackpolls and 2 Yellow Warblers along with the Common Yellowthroats. Still can’t complain as the Blackpoll is new for the park and a chance scan of the skies picked up a couple of Peregrine Falcons which I assume must be the local birds. Anyway I managed at least one shot I was vaguely happy with. OK time to get back to work on presentations for this week.
A highly underrated band my brother turned me on to, and a nice fit with my bird music playlist.
Another bird music classic from Sun Kil Moon. The kickoff bird music playlist here. Click the bird music tab below for more tunes!
Another gem from the bird music game. Goldfrapp and Animal Collective on one track – all good!
Magnolia Warbler and fly - Luke Tiller
Sunday morning showed how important even the littlest patches of greenery are in the city. Birding with the infamous 😉 birdspot we had a fun morning out tracking down these little feathered gems right in the heart of the city accompanied by the roar of Helicopters and West Side Highway Traffic. Amongst the good number of migrants was this little Magnolia Warbler that was looking for bugs on the lawn of one of the park piers.
The bird was so intent on getting some food after a long nights flying it seemed to just totally ignore me. They’ve done a lovely job with this park, so although it is small it has a few nice specimen trees, some bayberry (Yellow-rumped heaven!) a little ‘natural’ section (essentially a mix of native plants and some weeds!) and some nice decorative plantings.
The birds seemed happy enough to as they were all sticking around, which allowed me to come back later in the day with the camera (apart from the flycatcher which seemed to have decided to move on). Here’s the google map of the park (pre work completion obviously!) doesn’t look like much, but for these birds a safe haven right slap bang in the heart of NYC.
Trip List: Warblers: Tennessee (1), Northern Parula (1), Yellow (4), Black & White (1), N.Waterthrush (2), Palm (6 – western subspecies types), Common Yellowthroat (17), Magnolia (1). Others: Yellow-bellied Flycatcher (1*), Bald Eagle, House Wren, Double-crested Cormorant, American Robin, Red-winged Blackbird (1), Baltimore Oriole (1), Laughing Gull, MODO’s, 3 regular gull species, Cedar Waxwing, Gray Catbird (4), Northern Mockingbird (3), 3 introduced species. 1 American Kestrel.
*Well seen down to 15 feet and field marks including heavy breast streaking, yellow wash to throat and eyering, smallish bill, all orange lower mandible, slightly crested shape of large head, primary projection that seemed relatively long to me (compared to Least) and narrow looking tail. Bugger wouldn’t wait for me to go back to the apartment to get the camera though would he!
Under Clear Skies 