An official sign, with the logos of the Dept. of Parks / New York City, and the 
Central Park Conservancy (who are tasked with that park’s day-to-day management 
and much of its’ planning) prominently-posted within the below-noted park, 
contains the following among listed regulations of that park (full quote) - " 
“Amplified Sound Without a Permit is Prohibited Throughout Central Park at All 
Times.” (end quote from that official signage.) *PLEASE take note & know that 
this, as a NYC PARKS regulation specific to that park is a legal directive*, 
not just a recommendation.  
-  -  -  -  -
Tuesday, 22 May, 2018 - Central Park, Manhattan, N.Y. City

A male Mourning Warbler, at the Gill, a stream in the heart of the Ramble, was 
found during the Linneaen Society of New York’s final Tuesdays-in-May walk, led 
by longtime Linnaean member & guide, Richard Lieberman, and seen by many, as 
well as by later observers there - with no use of sound-making devices.  One 
‘finale' to this excellent & long-running walk-series, by both this 
walk-leader, & that venerable field-naturalist’s organization.  Additionally, 
in the park’s north end, I re-found a Mourning Warbler, in the Peter Sharp 
garden area of the Great Hill, which was possibly the same as found the other 
day by a group led by Ken Chaya with the NYCH20[org.] nature-walk participants. 
Further, I also found 2 female Mourning Warblers more or less together & 
briefly seen simultanously, in the n. woods area some 150+ yards east of the 
prior-noted location.  These 2 female Mournings were at first, not that 
skulking & gave fairly nice views, but the lighting at 6:20 a.m. was not quite 
enough for my point-&-shoot, & further I do not use flash on birds that I 
attempt to photograph. In the instance of one later-discovered male Mourning 
Warbler, near the W. 81 St. Transverse (east of the park’s W. Drive) a number 
of people made fine photos of the orcasionally cooperative male Mourning there. 
 In addition there was a further report, by at least one & possibly seen by 
several, of yet another Mourning at the bridle path south of the CP reservoir 
not far from the Central Park NYPD police parking zone. Some of us went to at 
least briefly search for that reported individual, later in the day Tues.

Thus there were a minimum of 5, & perhaps 6 [+] Mourning Warblers present in 
Central Park just on Tuesday/22nd, & it is reasonably likely more than that 
number were actually present, park-wide. To be slightly redundant, this is not 
a “rare” warbler species in migration in the northeast, it is simply an 
easily-overlooked one, among the skulkers & males may or may not give a geat 
deal of song in the migration stop-overs; of course the equal no’s. of females 
migrating, as with all other warblers of female sex, do not give song, but both 
sexes of all warblers do offer “chip” & other call notes, which if learned & 
discerned well, can at least help to locate them, esp., in some cases the 
shyest of species.  

Mourning Warbler is also a rather late-moving spring migrant & individuals, 
esp. females, may be found well south of the more-northerly breeding areas, 
into June in almost any year.  (The species is sometimes noted in the north as 
early as the first half of May, but the bulk of this species in spring 
migration is typically moving thru later in that month, & also into June.)  I 
am aware of a potential “high count” of Mourning Warblers, 7 individuals 
carefully observed and recorded in a prior year in the modern era, & was a 
party to that effort to find a rather high number of that species, by “targeted 
bird-finding in an essentially all-day, park-wide effort; there also have been 
any number of times with multiple sightings-locations of the species in one 
day, over just the past 25 years in Central Park & with many observers having 
had this occur, although of course not at all “commonly”.  All of the findings 
of the Mourning Warblers seen in Central Park on this day 5/22 were made with 
no use of amplified sounds.  

In addition to the above warbler species, 22 further (additional) warbler 
species were found by multiple observers throughout the park, & some species 
were again fairly numerous, with nonethless a clear turnover of the make-up of 
sexes and perhaps (first-year) ages of some migrants, as well as a further 
trend to more of such later-spring migrants (besides the Mourning influx) as 
Blackpoll Warbler (and even more females of them), and Gray-cheeked Thrush, as 
well as a number of other indicators such as some migrant species now being 
nearly cleared-out from at least anyone asked’s sightings & my own wanderings 
of the park-entire.

A number of other less-common migrants were again seen in more than just one 
location, including Philadelphia Vireo (one at the Blockhouse, another near the 
SW portion of the reservoir, & possible other sightings of this 
once-rare-in-spring species); & Summer Tanager (with a female noted at the 
Blockhouse/N. woods area, and another female Summer Tanager farther south in 
the Ramble later, ably found by the American Museum of Natural History’s group 
with their always-great leader[s]); and multiples of Olive-sided Flycatchers 
with a minimum of 4 in four very discrete-separated areas of the park; one or 
more of these also heard calling ('pip-pip-pip' calls) in addition to excellent 
views of all of these.  The flycatcher “parade” also was ongoing & some singing 
or calling helped to (again) ID a number of the Empidonax (genus), as well as 
E. Wood-Pewees - the latter, perhaps mostly heard-only overall.  The near-lack 
of migrant sparrow species was a bit notable this day, while (resident, 
nesting) Song Sparrows belted out songs, as the females were on nests.

And on such a rainy-east winds day, as this Tuesday was, there were many 
hundreds of swallows (and Chimney Swifts) working low over not just the 
reservoir, where modest numbers were, but also over lawns & some trees in the 
Great Lawn, N. Meadow, Meer, & even parts of the smaller lawn areas of the 
park; by far most of the swallows were Barn, but multiples of Tree, N. 
Rough-winged, & at least several Cliff as well as Bank Swallow[s] were noted, 
one Cliff being seen by a number of seekers into the afternoon, but 2 others 
still moving over an area just to the north, and generally all or most of these 
being at barely over tree-top or lower elevation above the ground or waters.  

Good ethically-minded birding,

Tom Fiore
manhattan












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