Saturday, 30 October, 2010 - Manhattan, New York City The good flights carried into parts of Manhattan that are not always looked at, as well as some that are. In Riverside Park at nearly sunset, after a good amount of typical migrant activity in the areas above 100th Street, the slightly more surprising species was a young female Cape May Warbler with virtually no color except at the rump. At Inwood Hill Park earlier there were a number of nice birds including 2 Common Ravens and a lot of finches, mainly American Goldfinches and Purple Finches, as well as at least a few Pine Siskins. At Bryant Park (mid-town) the lingering Ovenbird was still in shrubberies on the north side of the rink area. The very recent Prothonotary Warbler was not seen, despite a 45-minute search in front of the NY Public Library, while a tail-less Swamp Sparrow and over 30 White-throated Sparrows were still to be seen along with a few Yellow- bellied Sapsuckers in the trees near the library. A tremendous flight overnight and well on into the morning, rivaled by the flight the night before (but this morning's flight seemed deeper to me) and featured a number of blackbird species, with Rusty Blackbirds moving very nicely, more than 3 dozen going through early in the a.m. & many Red-winged Blackbirds, plus an oriole which was presumably a Baltimore (and not a Bullock's). Eastern Bluebirds have been moving nicely, as many as fifty having passed by Manhattan in these past 3 days, with a few of these stopping off (just briefly?) in Central / Riverside Parks.
The Hudson River, while not having a lot of birds of great note, did feature a couple of Cave Swallows moving down at about noon and following a seeming increase in wind speed. These on top of who knows how many being seen/reported from the greater northeast in the last 3 or 4 days. At the northern end of Manhattan there were far more birds (numbers) than at the south end today. I'm assuming the birds nearing the south end simply continued on. Among other species having been reported around the region, this at Cape May, NJ: https://lists.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1010&L=NJBIRDS&T=0&F=&S=&P=1453 High count of Cave Swallows (that I've found reported) were 120+ in Ontario Canada. A possible N. Wheatear was mentioned at coastal CT today but the bird not re-found. LeConte's Sparrows in at least 5 states / provinces, in the greater northeastern area. Cattle Egrets, many places in the norrtheast up to & perhaps beyond Newfoundland. Good birding, Tom Fiore, Manhattan -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --