Thursday-Friday, 14-15 April, 2011 - Manhattan, N.Y. City The Central Park VARIED THRUSH looks to possibly hang in for a full 5 months - if it stays on into the last week of April... it's still present today (Friday) in the area on the north side of the East 79 St. transverse road and roughly opposite the SW corner area of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the building projects well into the park itself at that point) & in the trees & shrubs along & near the transverse - it's been frequenting this general area more in the past month, rather than the previously favored areas of the west side of the East Drive of the park. It also might be sought around Cedar Hill, on the south side of the transverse and east of the park's E. Drive as it has sometimes moved around that area. Indeed, later on Friday (after 1 p.m.), I found the Varied thrush again, but at Cedar Hill, ranging around quite a bit as various human activities intruded on its feeding, as first noticed in the above location. This thrush is hardly very vocaland I've almost always found it visually, rather than by calls.
Central Park's first-year RED-HEADED WOODPECKER may be a bit easier to find, near & lately more often north of the 66 Street transverse road & in trees on the south side of Sheep Meadow or nearby - as it was Friday morning. It now has a good amount of red, making it a bit easier still to locate. It seems not to be particularly vocal. I find that standing well to the east and scanning 'bare-eyed' works for me in seeking this bird. The vantage point I choose is often a bit to the west of the SE corner of Sheep Meadow, looking mostly west or south, as the Red-headed may also go back to working trees on the south side of the transverse, just west of &/or adjacent the Carousel. Friday seemed a bit quieter still (than any previous day this week) but there were certainly lingering migrants from the nice push that took place earlier in the week, and likely some new birds also dropped in as a good deal of migration has occurred even when local weather didn't seem quite as likely to produce flight. The upper lobe of the lake & a bit into the western ramble area, such as north of the outlet of the Gill (stream) to the lake were somewhat active in afternoon and by standing at Bank Rock bay & a few other points just into the Ramble for a total of 45 minutes I was able to see a Louisiana Waterthrush, Black-and-white Warbler, Pine Warbler (male), a few Palm & Myrtle [Yellow-rumped] Warblers, plus E. Phoebe, Ruby-crowned Kinglets a- plenty, a few Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers & assorted other species. A very narrow section of newly seeded grass north of Bow bridge held a Field plus 25+ Song Sparrows, but the prime spot for an afternoon sparrow-watch happened to be on a rock near the Mineral Springs pavillion (food court) north of sheep Meadow where someone had dumped out a hefty supply of what appeared to be mainly cracked corn, which initially was attracting Passer domesticus in numbers (House Sparrows) but from all directions came: Chipping (several0, Field (1), Savannah (1, until a Song chased it down to ground), Song (several), White- throated (3 or 4) and Slate-colored Junco (6+) - all these seemed quite willing to elbow up to the larger more aggressive House Sparrows; and only an unleashed small dog running right up the rock got the flock to disband. Another spot with multiple sparrow species was in the north end this a.m., a larger area newly-seeded & held several Savannah, Field, & many Chipping, Song, & white-throated Sparrows. This was on the SE part of the Great Hill. The north end was, in my experience, a little less active than had been although there were pockets with plenty of Hermit Thrushes, N. [Yellow-shafted] Flickers, and some other migrants. I saw 2 Golden-crowned Kinglets in the n. end, & also saw a total of (only) 3 "red" Fox Sparrows in all the park from C.P. South to 110 St. The reservoir held a couple of Laughing Gulls as well as modest numbers of the 3 more usual gull species (Ring-billed, Herring, Great Black-backed) and there are still well over 120 N. Shovelers there, along with some Buffleheads and Ruddy Ducks. On Thursday there was a single drake Wood Duck out in the middle in the mid-day period. The reservoir on Friday appeared to be devoid of any swallows, while at the Meer in the a.m., there were the 3 most regularly-seen species of Central - Barn (mainly) and N. Rough- winged & a couple of Tree Swallows, all very actively feeding over the entire Meer. At least 2 Green Herons were still present Friday. - - - - - - - On Thursday at Central Park, my impression was that more birds had departed than had arrived, with numbers of migrants such as flickers, kinglets, hermit thrush, warblers and sparrows all much lower in overall numbers than the previous few days. So it's not too surprising to hear about some of these earlier migrants already on territories 100+ miles and more north of the NYC area, for a few, even much farther north, these last several days or so. A fly-over breeding-plumaged Common Loon was seen by 2 of us, pointed out by Tom Perlman. We found modest numbers of expected migrants such as Pine & Palm Warblers, Blue-headed Vireo & some others, but not the multiple waterthrushes nor as many of other early migrants as had been. Incidentally, any number of other birders have reported seeing Northern Waterthrush, while thru today I'd only noted Louisiana in Central Park. I did 'scare up' an early-ish Ovenbird in the north woods, on Thursday - that, and a Yellow Warbler earlier this week were the 2 really early species I've seen, not expected in "typical" timing for 10-15 days, or more... There have been Northern Waterthrush reported from Prospect Park, & they also have reported singles of Black-throated Green Warbler, as well as most of the expected species that Central has also had, plus their Yellow-throated Warbler which was still being reported at least to Thursday. (Also, a White-eyed Vireo was among new arrivals at Prospect Park today.) - - - Some who follow reports from various other states, provinces and / or regions of N. America will have seen that there's been a modest push of early migrants through a lot of eastern N. America and at least some species made it quite far north already, although with a lot of nasty weather around, there's also a "pile" of migrants well to the south of NY (including some of the species already seen here in singles or minimally so far). A Massachusetts report has now come in of Yellow-throated Warbler, not a huge surprise, given those seen in SE NY this week. A Purple Martin that reached Newfoundland Canada was certainly on a mission to get far in a hurry; it's probably not too happy with what can be had in the way of bugs there yet. The next really good flight conditions could bring us a first significant push of neotropical-wintering migrants - a good number of these are already pushing into mid-Atalantic states now. It doesn't look too promising for that this weekend, but by today's date, most "bets" are off, and birds are on their way! 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/ --
