Co-worker Bill on his way home alerted me to multiple American Woodcock sightings in Central Park (probably meant Prospect). So I resumed my daily watch just before dusk today. All the daffodils, which were days away from blooming on Monday, were covered in snow so that only a few green tips peaked above the frozen white expanse as if in a sick replay of breaking ground two weeks earlier. Many of the paths were not plowed or blocked off for the demolition of the skating rink, but nevertheless, even in the failing light, the vast whiteness would make the woodcocks easy to spot. Sure enough, I found two in the northwest corner close to the plowed paths. One under the evergreen in the corner of the lawn’s cement colonnade, the other under a bush perpendicular to the welcome sign and Wafels & Dinges. Both puffed up and perfectly still. The latter looked okay, eyes closed, breathing, although it had some reddish debris at its bill tip. I feel some guilt about writing “harbingers of Spring”, they appear to bearing the brunt of some joke played by Old Man Winter on us all.
Happy (real soon) birding, Alan Drogin -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
