As described Stephen Chang found a small, pale sparrow with a single white media crown stripe on the eastern most lawn bowling and croquet field north of Sheep Meadow. Stephen had taken photos and showed them to a few birders in the Ramble. Anthony Collerton thought it looked too pale, but that the light-colored crown stripe pointed to Grasshopper Sparrow. All of the bird's markings didn't fit that though.
Anyhow, to check on it Richard Liebermann and I walked by there on our way out of the park and found the bird perching on the westside fence. After 30s or so it drop down and flew across the field towards the building (Au Bon Pain cafe building). It then stayed out of sight for about 20 minutes before I found it again (Richard had to leave), now it was feeding on the grass lawn with two Chipping Sparrows, a few House Sparrows and White-throats, plus one Junco. The then "mystery" sparrow was the same size as the Chippies. It was paler than any of the Grasshopper Sparrows in my iBird guide, but I could see that it had faint buff streaking on the flanks and across the breast. Plain face with dark eye. Short tail. Back pattern not really describable. Once I got access to a computer I looked up photos of Grasshopper Sparrows online and found photos of paler individuals than the ones in the iBird guide. This is the first Grasshopper Sparrow(if that what it is, I think so) I have seen in Central Park and I have not seen many anywhere else. It's flight and dive in to the hedge on the western side of the ball lawn field when being chased by a House Sparrow was also fitting that of the flight of a Grasshopper Sparrow. I went back at 6pm after work hoping to get photos of the bird, but I did not see it. The other sparrow species and Junco were still there though, so it is possible that also the Grasshopper Sparrow will be there tomorrow. good birding and a new bird for Central Park, Anders Peltomaa -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES 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://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
