Wednesday, the 15th of March, 2017 Central Park - in Manhattan, N.Y. City ''beware the ices of March'', the soothsayer -sort of- sayth, for which this day, in addition to weather-related perils to creatures of the genus Homo, brought dramatics of a Scolopax-ian sort to inner/uber Central Park (Scolopax is an avian genus, in which American Woodcock is placed).
At an absolute minimum, there were 35-40 American Woodcock within the park we know as Central, and those numbers, conservative as can be - the true numbers may have been as much as triple what I am reporting and saw for myself in 8 hours out in the cold, ice, and wind (far less than what some of these birds are going thru - but, see below, as well). I remained in the field until 2 hours past sunset (yes, I was wearing 'arctic' gear), and thru afternoon-evening hours, visited parts of Central Park, & much more briefly, in Morningside Park (2 more woodcocks found there, in just 20 minutes - that park, smaller than Central, & a short way off to the northwest, is west of Frederick Douglass Boulevard, and beneath/east of Morningside Drive). Amid excitement of an historic day for the species in Central, observations were and are very much tempered by the grave difficulty these individual lives are in, just now. That said, birds that migrate to and from, or reside in, temperate or cold-temperate climes, such as American Woodcock - & many, many, many other species moving at the ''end'' of winter! - have faced these rough-weather issues over millennia, and they are adapted, as species, to withstand such 'infrequent' situations as this seems to us to be. It has been about twenty years (i.e., about one generation in the genus Homo, in contemporary times), or a bit more, since an event of his magnitude in the city of New York took place (in my memory) however some others, with longer memory &/or deeper notes, may have more to say on this subject. - to add a bit to the city-wide (at least) scope of this day's woodcock-event, there are sightings from some other areas - from each borough (county) in city of New York, that (at least) suggest this may have involved many, many, many dozens of woodcocks in each (of 5, in NYC) counties - and possibly in the many many hundreds, if not even more, thru this region in just the past 24-36 hours. Nature IS prolific, in some (many) instances. Higher numbers of some other species noted - Rusty Blackbirds (at least 9), [Red] Fox Sparrows, (at least 20), & to (somewhat) lesser extent, Hooded Merganser (at least 7), Ring-necked Duck (at least 6, reservoir), & Dark-eyed Junco (at least 120) - these all counted in Central Park on Wednesday, 3/15. A Red-headed Woodpecker continues in the park, in areas west of East 68th Street. A bird-list for Central Park on Wednesday, 3/15: Pied-billed Grebe Double-crested Cormorant Great Blue Heron Black-crowned Night-Heron Canada Goose Wood Duck Gadwall American Wigeon American Black Duck Mallard Northern Shoveler Northern Pintail Green-winged Teal Ring-necked Duck Bufflehead Hooded Merganser Red-breasted Merganser (reservoir) Ruddy Duck Sharp-shinned Hawk Cooper's Hawk Red-tailed Hawk American Kestrel American Coot American Woodcock Ring-billed Gull [American] Herring Gull Great Black-backed Gull [feral] Rock Pigeon Mourning Dove Red-headed Woodpecker Red-bellied Woodpecker Yellow-bellied Sapsucker Downy Woodpecker Hairy Woodpecker Yellow-shafted Flicker Eastern Phoebe [1] Blue Jay American Crow Black-capped Chickadee Tufted Titmouse Red-breasted Nuthatch White-breasted Nuthatch Brown Creeper Carolina Wren Ruby-crowned Kinglet [1] Hermit Thrush [1] American Robin Northern Mockingbird Brown Thrasher European Starling Eastern Towhee Field Sparrow [1] [red] Fox Sparrow Song Sparrow Swamp Sparrow White-throated Sparrow Dark-eyed Junco Northern Cardinal Red-winged Blackbird Rusty Blackbird Common Grackle Brown-headed Cowbird House Finch American Goldfinch House Sparrow -------------- “This thing of darkness I acknowledge - is mine.” - The Tempest - WiIIiam Shakespeare “You’re on Earth. There’s no cure for that." -'Endgame' - a 1957 Samuel Beckett play. kiusaamista vastaan! - at any place & at any time. - - - good birding - and be careful on the ice, Tom Fiore Manhattan -- 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/ --
