I knew something was afoot when I walked my son to preschool through Madison Square Park this morning and saw lots of non-house-sparrow activity on the Center Oval lawn (which is usually the province of Robins, Starlings and House Sparrows): First a Common Yellowthroat, then a Redstart in a tree, then a female Towhee in the newly-planted shrubs in the center of the lawn, then Ovenbird, Canada Warbler, Swainson's Thrush, and the biggie...MOURNING WARBLER! Out in the open foraging in the grass, a no-doubter. It soon became apparent that, for some reason, the Park drew it lots of birds today. Baltimore Oriole and Wood Thush also heard in the trees. And after I left, reports kept coming in of more: Magnolia Warbler, Indigo Bunting, female Hooded Warbler. A great day for Madison Square Park, and now the park sits at 97 species...3 species away from turning from BLUE to GREEN on the eBird hotspot heat map. Go microparks! -Ethan Goodman --
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/ --