New York County (in N.Y. City) including Manhattan, and Randall’s Island Thursday, Friday, & Saturday, Feb. 17th, 18th, & 19th -
The 2 Western Tanagers were each ongoing in respective locations, as of at least Friday, 2/18, one at Carl Schurz Park off East End Ave. and the other around W. 48th St. and Tenth Ave., including near & in the Clinton Community Garden area, e. of Tenth. Each bird may require some patience to see; the Carl Schurz Park is more semi-regular coming to & around the feeder array, s. of the E. 86th St. entrance to the park, or just west of the n.w. gate to the Catbird Playground in that park. Thanks in advance for being courteous to all others, when visiting these neighborhood locations. For white-winged gulls, there were at least 2 Iceland Gulls at a beer and beverage distributor’s rooftop just by 207th St., west of the Harlem River, for several days from at least Thursday 2/17 thru Sat., 2/19 (M. Ross first sighted, 2/17). This is not all that far from Sherman Creek and Swindler Cove Park which is much more-regularly visited; there are small dead-end streets which lead to viwepoints on the Harlem River to the north, & some are even designated as NYC park-space, but offer rather little that most visitors might think are particularly park-like. Gulling on (looking at) the reservoir in Central Park, and at some other sites where gulls will gather around N.Y. County, has been producing a motley assortment of just the typical-three of wintertime in the county: Ring-billed (especially), [American] Herring, and Great Black-backed Gulls. (There appear to have been no documented or definitive sightings of the slaty-backed since Feb. 12th.) At times, there’ve been fairly good no’s. of gulls to work on, including still on the reservoir, however the somewhat-anticipated hunting or mere fly-bys of raptors including Bald Eagle, Peregrine, & some of the Red-tailed Hawks, all combine to scare off a number of gulls from staying-put that long, and other locations may be finding larger gull-gatherings lately. There were a couple of reports of Lesser Black-backed Gull in the county, w/ minimal details. Both Vulture species were seen from Manhattan & Randall’s Island ovef the 3 days of this report, & as is typical only Turkey Vulture seen from a wider number of locations, and days and times. Common Ravens have continued to be seen from a wide variety of locations. Increases in some species have been noted, through the ups-downs of temparatures & the snow-melt, snow-squalls, flurries and sunshine of recent days. Two Snow Geese appeared in Central Park, on the reservoir and late in the day, at the Great Lawn, on Saturday. At Randall’s Island, at least 1 Mute Swan has been somewhat regular, and at least 3 (probably more) Common Goldeneyes were around & occasionally not at outrageous scope-only-type distances, these all to Saturday; various other waterfowl has also included such duckage as Lesser Scaup, N. Shoveler, Ruddy Duck, & others. Also showing in recent days at Randall’s have been multiple Black-crowned Night-Herons, and Great Blue Heron as well. Some of the earlier Killdeer may have moved on but still a couple showed again by Saturday on Randall’s, & a Pied-billed Grebe has been showing there at times, along with a fairly good variety of other birds. Warblers that were still surviving have included 2 Pines (both, Central Park) and the small no’s. of [Myrtle] Yellow-rumped in several locations of n. Manhattan (and likely ongoing also at the s. end of Governors Island in the shrubs), as well as Common Yellowthroat and Ovenbird, both species in mid-Manhattan. Most of the songbirds that are actually moving in one direction or another have included American Robins, Cedar Waxwings, Red-winged Blackbirds, & Common Grackles - however there are also indications some additional species have been on the move - which for N.Y. County, has included some exodus along with modest arrivals and passages. Overall no’s. of American Robins were at their highest no’s. of the year *so far* in this past week. Lingering species have included a hen Green-winged Teal, & multiple Wood Ducks all at Central Park, a small no. of American Coots, and around the county more generally, Double-crested & Great Cormorants, Common & Red-throated Loons (both scant), [Atlantic] Brant, Canada Geese, Gadwall, American Black Duck, the ever-almost-ubiquitous Mallard, N. Pintail (several), Bufflehead, Hooded Mergansers (almost all in Central Park), Bald Eagle, Cooper’s Hawk, (a few reports of) Sharp-shinned Hawk, (many scores of) Red-tailed Hawks (and many paired off), American Woodcock (although the passage of last week may have mostly tried to push on), the GHowls and their relatives, Belted Kingfisher (few), feral Rock Pigeon, Mourning Dove, American Kestrel, Merlin (few), N. Flicker, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Downy, Hairy (scant) and Red-bellied Woodpckers, American Crow, Fish Crow (in select parts of the county, esp. at Governors Island), Blue Jay, Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Red-breasted Nuthatch, White-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, Carolina Wren, Winter Wren (multiple areas, but not that many), Golden-crowned Kinglet, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Hermit Thrush, Gray Catbird, N. Mockingbird, Brown Thrasher, European Starling, House Sparrow, Cedar Waxwing (nice no’s., particularly seen thru n. Manhattan, but showing in Central Park, & many other locations as well), E. Towhee, Chipping Sparrow, Field Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow (still on Randall’s Island but still v. scarce), [Red] Fox Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow (in great no’s. as usual for winter in the county), Slate-colored Junco, N. Cardinal, Red-winged Blackbird, Rusty Blackbird, Common Grackle, Brown-headed Cowbird, Purple Finch (very scarce; a few in past week), House Finch, American Goldfinch, and likely at least a few additional species. good birding 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/ --
