Wednesday, 20 April, 2011 - At the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, the male Prothonotary Warbler continued today at the larger of the "twin lakes", actually a small, lightly vegetated (as of now) pond, at the NW corner of the garden. Proceed to your farthest left along the perimeter from any entry point into the garden. The Prothonotary was singing quite a bit thru early afternoon and doing some sallies after small insects at the pond's edges and from adjacent trees; it also occasionally sang or fed higher in trees surrounding the "lake" but always came back to more typically low branches. In the same area were also fair numbers of some of the most typical early spring songbird migrants, along with a couple of drake Wood Ducks. The native forest seemed relatively quiet but had "patchy pockets" of avian activity including more of the same typical early migrants and some residents. The entire garden is of course filled with magnificent blooms in most areas, as the leaves just begin to unfurl. Admission is free to all on Wednesdays & on Saturday mornings just up 'til noon, although those wanting to park in the NYBG lot will pay $12. in the regular lot if not a garden member. On other days, standard admission to the grounds (only) is $8. per adult. The garden opens to the public at 10 a.m., and will be open this coming Monday - normally it is closed on Mondays. - - - - At Central Park earlier this morning, I spent a full 2 hours from first light thru about 8 a.m. at Summit Rock and enjoyed a good showing of migrants including a few newly arrived species, such as a Wood Thrush (giving its typical "drops-of-water" calls), & a first- year male Orchard Oriole, as well as various warblers including Ovenbird, Northern Parula, Black-throated Green, Black-and-white, Pine (several, all but one were females), Palm (fair numbers) and Myrtle [Yellow-rumped] by the 100's, many of which seemed to be moving in the trees, tending north as some of the other birds also were doing. Also present in good numbers were Chipping and White-throated Sparrows, with lower numbers of Eastern Towhee, Swamp Sparrow and some Purple Finches (5+) along with a fair movement of American Goldfinch. Hermit Thrushes continued to move along into the 6:30 period and in general, some of the activity seemed to have moved on and quieted by about 7:45 a.m., but certainly there were still multiples of some species there. Just now, I looked in this area, including at Tanner's Spring (immediately south) and was not that impressed with numbers of migrants - it seems that a lot had moved on. This has been seemingly so any number of times this spring, particularly on days with overcast and/or foggy-drizzly conditions in the mornings. I am going to have a late look at a few more spots! (A more complete report by Thursday eve.)
The female Varied Thrush and Red-headed Woodpecker also continue in Central Park, in the same areas each was seen in yesterday and recently, as noted in multiple recent reports. Incidentally, a hint of all this migration activity is strongly suggested by the multiple migrants found in Bryant Park in mid-town Manhattan (immediately west of the main branch of the NY Public Library at Fifth to Sixth Avenues, 40-42 Streets, with (among others) Wood Thrush and adult male Orchard Oriole present there in the morning. This is noted in an ebirdsnyc report from Matthew Rymkiewicz: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebirdsnyc/message/8869 and a good look at other small city parks or green spaces at this time of year could yield more of such nice surprises! 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/ --
