Central Park, Manhattan, N.Y. City - On Friday morning, April 26th, a LITTLE Blue Heron was a fine surprise in this park, at the south end of the Ramble and east of landmark Bow Bridge, not unexpected at all in a number of other sites in N.Y. City, but decidedly rare for the island of Manhattan over the long history of bird-observation there. Many many observers of this breeding plumaged adult bird, with many more arriving to look in the afternoon of Friday. Thanks to Liam Brock for this great new find for the spring season - and it looks for this modern era, also. Plenty of nice photos will be found of this lovely heron in the Macaulay Library archives, via many eBird reports.
NB, this may well be the first of this heron species at Central Park to be documented for the -modern and eBird era, with earlier sightings, even -if- photographed or videotaped and that with actual tape ! - seemingly not in any historical databases. It is not the first occurrence of the species in Central Park, historically. In a period of extensive non-work over a period of time at The Meer area in the parks northern end, in the 1990s, there were many unusual and interesting migrant and other birds stopping in, with relatively little to near-zero visual documentation on some species occurring then, at a piece of temporary, but not brief, bird and wildlife habitat in a site which was very long ago, a part of great wetlands in Manahatta - that area is still a low-lying naturally wetter sector due to geology and hydrology of the area. A first-of-year-here Yellow-throated WARBLER at the Central Park Ramble was reported and confirmed in eBird for Friday morning as well, an additional prompt for a lot of seekers to get in to that park all thru the day and simply get out anywhere for birds on the move, and check out some of this good migration. Also a presumed first for Manhattan this spring, on Thursday, Tennessee Warbler - singing - seen at the south sector of Central Park, and perhaps elsewhere on the day. More than 100 species of native birds were found for Friday 4-26 in this one park, with a fair number of the species noted from the previous days of sightings-reports. Multiple male-plumaged Hooded Warblers are just one of many - 19-plus species by mid-afternoon - of the migratory American warbler species enjoyed again, the latter Hoodeds showing nicely in at least 4 different sectors of that park and watched by well-over 100 total observers, in multiple sectors of that one park. Flycatchers including Least and Great Crested, along with E. Kingbird and E. Phoebe, four or more species of expected vireos including White-eyed Vireo, Orchard and Baltimore Orioles, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, still-good sparrow variety and, likely the first-of-spring Yellow-billed Cuckoo are all part of the ongoing colors and diversity in late-Aprils ongoing migration. The 2 Green-winged Teals also remained at The Pool, in the n-w sector of Central Park, while waterfowl in general has been diminishing here in variety, as is expected by about now in this location. Good birding to all, Tom Fiore manhattan -- (copy & paste any URL below, then modify any text "_DOT_" to a period ".") NYSbirds-L List Info: NortheastBirding_DOT_com/NYSbirdsWELCOME_DOT_htm NortheastBirding_DOT_com/NYSbirdsRULES_DOT_htm NortheastBirding_DOT_com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave_DOT_htm ARCHIVES: 1) mail-archive_DOT_com/nysbirds-l@cornell_DOT_edu/maillist_DOT_html 2) surfbirds_DOT_com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) birding_DOT_aba_DOT_org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: ebird_DOT_org/content/ebird/ --
