Central Park, Manhattan, N.Y. City on Marathon Sunday, 6 November, 2016 Searching a bit of the north end of the park fairly early, particularly on the Great Hill, I came up with no rarer sparrows; in the north woods east of the Blockhouse, with a very large, loose flock consisting mainly of White-throated Sparrows, were at least 2 "Red" Fox Sparrows, seen together (& in a general area of the north woods where seen a few times just priorly) as well as other typical mid- November migrants & seasonal visitors - most unexpected was a fairly late Blue-headed Vireo, working sunny patches on the adjacent ridge.
I had a rather brief search of the area north of & near the Winterdale arch, in the vicinity of where a Yellow-breasted Chat had been for many days; while I went Chat-less in my quick wander in that area, there were clearly still birds of various kinds in the area, & it may be worth a look around there, if there is access (many areas and paths south of the reservoir, on the park's western side, and many areas all along the park's east & southern sides, may be closed-off or offer limited-movement access as this Sunday proceeds, due to the normal security & crowd-control by race officials and the police, for the big NYC Marathon this day.) At the reservoir, a minimum of 8 Buffleheads, & 5 Hooded Mergansers (including 3 drakes in fine plumage) were among duckage there - the latter birds seen near the northern edges as of an hour ago (this morning). Good birding - & a good run to the marathoners, Tom Fiore Manhattan -- 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/ --
