Manhattan, N.Y. City - Wed., Dec. 16th - The (ever-so-slightly-brighter plumaged) Western Tanager that’s now been known of for about 10+ days continues at West 22nd St. in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, east of Tenth Ave. - and on Wed. (12/16) in the noon hour, that tanager was frequenting fruiting trees on both south & north sides of that street, a good way east from the corner of Tenth Ave., indeed half-way up the block towards Ninth Ave. (& often in a tree at No. 437 W. 22nd Street. The tanager was joined in those mid-block fruiting trees by a few Am. Robins, some Euro. Starlings, and occasionally some House Sparrows as well as at least 1 male House Finch, as I watched & photographed. This tanager may range at least up & down that stretch of W. 22nd, so it’s worth a peek around; also, the tanager there had & has regularly gone to building hedges, shrubs & trees that are not ‘street’ trees. I did not see the tanager go back towards Tenth Ave. at all, as i watched there for about an hour; no other birders appeared, however a few local residents, and one building’s janitor were interested in knowing that the bright yellow bird was still around.
... Among other locations visited, I also stopped in at Bryant Park, just long enough to see the continuing (late, of course) Wood Thrush there - it’s been fairly mobile & so far, may be in reasonably good shape, although the diet of any lingering birds in that park in winter is surely high in sat-fats, sugars, and other things that go into seet treats (i.e., human-spilled foods). There are also a couple of Ovenbirds, possibly up to half-a-dozen Gray Catbirds, and a goodly number of White-throated Sparrows (esp. if looking from along Fifth Ave. adjacent the main branch New York Public Library, all the way thru the park itself to Sixth Ave. & 40th to 42nd Streets). There well may be some additional species of note in that space which includes a lot of not-so-busy (on a gray afternoon) shops and food stalls, & the open-and-busy skating rink - around which are many little nooks & crannies in which small birds might hide or take refuge at times. ... At Central Park, the good autumn for Lesser Scaup continues, with another appearance of that species at the C.P. reservoir. (that species of duck was once not so rare in Central, some decades ago - those were the days when Canvasback also were regular & fairly common there, & in addition, the occasional Tufted Duck would show on both that reservoir, as well as - same bird[s] over in the adjacent 2 rivers, Hudson &/or East River off Manhattan. 'Those ducky-days' are long gone now, but at least some of us have been birding enough years to recall that.) …. On Tuesday, Dec. 15th, there was a nice southbound movement of Snow Geese that passed over Manhattan, likely more than several hundred; many were extremely high, & the full numbers could hardly be tallied. These were likely on a mission to reach somewhere far south of N.Y. City. There also have been continued good flights of migrating Bald Eagles, this month, among the better Decembers in memory for this species as seen from Manhattan & the remainder of N.Y. County. Good birding to all - and thanks to the many who also keep the birds’ best interests at heart, when out in the field - and limit any possible disturbances to the birds’ requirements for food, shelter, safety, and quiet, including for birds now trying to roost undisturbed. 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/ --
