New York County (in N.Y. City) - including Manhattan, Governors, & Randall’s Islands -
Not quite certain of this, but it just might be nearly unprecedented that 31 species of American warblers have been found & documented in the county for a season (& year) *before the 1st of May*. That was what came about with the find & photo (by A. Cunningham) of a Prothonotary Warbler out on Randall’s Island on Friday, 4/30. (Another species just-arrived, Canada Warbler, has been seen in Manhattan as of 4/30, if not before then. - N.B., a male Canada Warbler was photographed in Fairfield County Connecticut on 4/30, quite an early date for that neighboring state.) At least 25 warbler species were seen (by many, many observers in all parts of that park) in Central Park alone on Friday, 4/30, with multiple other parks & green-spaces also having warblers of many species, as well as many other migrants in good numbers in some locations. …. It’s worth a note too that (among many other migrant breeders) Cerulean Warblers had already reached [**some!**] of their NYS breeding range as of late this past week, with singing males on territory and those are not particularly early, although more, including females, are still anticipated there. Another species to be watching for as they’ve continued to move through - Red-headed Woodpecker, seen elsewhere (in passage) this past week in the city & region. One other report, the 2nd Eastern Whip-poor-will of the spring was found on Friday, and again just briefly, in a different part of Central Park than the first reported. That species had already been arriving to many breeding areas, some far north of N.Y. City - such as in southern Maine. Some interesting reports of “gray-cheeked” thrush, in Central Park - an unexpectedly early date for that species and the *chance* for confusion with (varying-plumaged) Hermit Thrush exists, as can happen each year with migrant thrush ID here. Good photos and even more so, crisp sound-recordings of any calls or song might help in confirming these. There is also the chance of another Catharus [genus] thrush species in the area which have 'greyish cheeks' - Bicknell’s: in the phenology for spring arrivals, Bicknell’s *possibly* sometimes starting a bit earlier than Gray-Cheeked in spring - but that species-ID can be ‘tricky’ *away from* the wintering (in the Caribbean Greater Antilles, for Bicknell’s only) or breeding areas, without sound-recordings or at least very good photographs that show various plumage (& bill) features crisply. There are some (so far, very few) reports of “Gray-cheeked” Thrush this spring for states in the mid-Atlantic including photographed single birds in southern N.J. (on 4/28), and in Virginia (perhaps 2 or more, with photos), & farther south, most being of single individuals, and some of the photos suggestive of Gray-cheeked, from those states southwest of N.Y. City. Again these are noted as rare for their dates in those states, and just one individual had been confirmed as Gray-cheeked in the state of Virginia for 4/28 - in other words, still an early date, that far south of N.Y.! good birds for May, Tom Fiore manhattan -- 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/ --
