New York County (in N.Y. City) including Manhattan, Randall’s Island, & Governors Island
Saturday, June 11th: As we ride fiiled with Pride around this town seeing some excellent birds all along the way - at least 4 American Oystercatchers were noted from Randall’s Island (best views with a scope) by multi. observers, this at least a 2nd-occurence / sighting of the species seen from there this spring and with official-summer barely ten days away now. Also seen by some who sought them out, 2 Cliff Swallows again were noted for that island, mostly around the nest-site. Yellow-crowned Night-Heron was seen (again) not only there on Randall’s Island (as were multiple Black-crowneds); another Yellow-crowned Night-Heron was reported at the perhaps-more-unusual location of Battery Park City Park in 'Rector Park', by 2 observers on Sat. morn’. - although this last location is quite near to where they've been found semi-regularly at the southern tip of Manhattan (& with at least occasional sightings having come from Governors Island at times). The ‘singing' Acadian Flycatchers have continued on at the multiple locations some have been in; one of these as previously, in the Ramble section of Central Park; several others are distributed to the north within Manhattan island, & there also are at least 2 additional spp. of Empidonax for 6/11, a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher still lingering at Highbridge Park (n. section), and ‘singing’ Willow Flycatcher still present on the n. side of Randall’s Island (and possibly elsewhere in the county). Even though a typically-late species of passage in spring-migration, the Yellow-bellied is rather late to be found in this city now. Of warblers in the county, by far the most-numerous now are Yellow Warbler, with at least some now nesting (and also some with B.-h. Cowbird parasitizing their nests), and sightings from multi. Manhattan locations including in Central Park to 6/11. Secondary to that species are Common Yellowthroat, of which some seem to be attempting nesting (including within Central and a few other Manhattan parks) and some poss. just non-breeding lingerers at some smaller sites, as well as those which are likely-nesters on Randall’s and Governors Islands. At least a few American Redstarts were also still lingering and it is still slightly-possible some are attempting to court & nest - but that of course takes-two; some of these are just as likely late stragglers. The latter case would be so of the rest of [species of] Parulidae lingering on, some of which may well stay for part or even all of the summer (and again, with some southbound-migration to start up in just a few short weeks). Of lingering spp. there were: Magnolia Warbler, Blackburnian Warbler, Northern Parula, Blackpoll Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, Ovenbird, and Canada Warbler - thus ten warbler spp. in the county to the second-third of this month, most running quite late, even the few remaining Blackpolls still pushing thru. All of these species have occurred this late before and some have also partially or wholly summered-thru (these last 7 all as non-breeders). Of these 7 noted, all but one were found in Central Park, athough Blackpoll Warblers have been in several locations; some (few) also have been noted in other areas of N.Y. City and even also to 6/11. It’s nice learning of the at-least 60 species of native birds (not including the 3 feral but long-naturalized ‘city’-species of Rock Pigeon, Euro. Starling, or House Sparrow) that are now nesting in New York County - that is a very conservative estimate based on what has been seen thus far in the season, and is likely higher for the all 3 main islands of this county. This includes at least 5 species in the Tyrannidae, the ‘new world flycatcher’ tribe, which are definitely nesting. Some areas, perhaps esp. the northern half of Manhattan, may hold some further discoveries. (Fun fact, most ornithologists agree that the Tyrannidae is the largest group of birds in a single family of all the birds of the world, with an eye-popping & head-spinning 400+ species; more can be expected too, with at-least the ongoing taxonomic splitting, and that there is more knowledge gained in the Americas for all these many birds each year.) — we’ve passed the 30-species mark on butterflies for this year so far, in N.Y. County. Some more species should be anticipated in coming summer weeks. Listen to the birds singing; 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/ --
