The Yellow-headed Blackbird was continuing to be seen at Albany airport’s west side (Albany County, NY), by observers on-scene there into Sunday afternoon - May 16th.
---------- Sunday, May 16th - The female Prothonotary Warbler in Central Park, first reported on eBird in the morning, was seen by many as the day continued, at the northern end of The Lake, with the closest park entrance being that on West 77th Street & Central Park West. A lot of the views were had from “Oak Bridge” which sits astride the northern narrow arm of the lake. This appears to be the first sighting of this species for Manhattan this year, and perhaps just the 2nd in N.Y. County (an earlier one was also photographed at Randall’s Island this spring). A minimum of 25 other warbler species were also being found in Central Park, & many all across Manhattan in its dozens of parks larger & smaller. Among those many, Bay-breasted Warblers in double-digit numbers (including that many within Central Park alone, as well as many in other locations) were delighting a lot of observers. This continued a several-days-long trend of that species’ increase in the county. At least a few warbler species now running ‘late’ (for here) added to the diversity being found, including Pine & Palm Warbler[s]. There have been some Gray-cheeked-type Thrushes showing in multiple locations in N.Y. County, & at least a few of these could - potentially - be Bicknell’s Thrush (which is not actually a mega-rare migrant in this area, but is rarely-identified with complete certainty away from the species’ pockets of specialized habitat for both breeding, & winterng (the latter all in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean). Audio of any full song for these closely related species (Gray-cheeked &/or Bicknell’s) is a useful way of discerning the ID to species-level, on migration-passage observations. I have heard what sounded to my ear as Gray-cheeked singing, while observing a few of them, and counting as that species on my own list, this month - all in just the last few days in Manhattan. Being out at both 5 am & 8:30 pm can help. (N.B., a Bicknell’s Thrush has been reported as singing from Prospect Park with over a dozen observers, on Sunday, 5/16 - and also of interest at Prospect Park in Brooklyn (Kings County, N.Y. City) have been sightings of Mourning Warbler with multiple experienced observers/photos.) Among notable sightings for Saturday, May 15th were a Purple Martin seen by a small group of keen & sharp-eyed observers, at Central Park (with thanks to A. Burke for the spotting), as well as a well-described Yellow-throated Warbler at the small Canal Park in lower Manhattan (thanks to A. Evans for that report). And there certainly were many many other great sightings all around the county for these past several days into Sunday. We’re working towards the 33rd warbler species of the spring for N.Y. County, with one species so far being unconfirmed, albeit possibly having moved through in some of the recent excellent migration (that would be Golden-winged Warbler). Lots of other excellent finds for Sunday 5/16 which among the many, include both species of Cuckoo (Black-billed the low-volume migrant this day, while Yellow-billed Cuckoos were nearly-common and some were calling well in at least 3 parks in manhattan on the early morn’), Olive-sided Flycatcher (seen as well as heard), at least 3 species of singing Empidonax (Acadian, Willow, Least) and even E. Phoebe still around (but scarcer now -here- than Great Crested Flycatcher or E. Kingbird, & E. Wood-Pewee that’s been increasing as expected now), all six of our regularly-occuring Vireo species (Philadelphia the latest of these to be passing thru), additional finds of Summer Tanagers (of both sexes), and a whole lot more. Perhaps a write-up with more of these many migrants on another day. good peak-spring landbird migration to all, 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/ --
