Tuesday, 18 December, 2018 Union Square Park, Manhattan, N.Y. City A 1st-fall, presumed female Cape May Warbler was present again at the above park, and again in the same area where Rob Bate had found it first the previous day. I had to wait a bit before noticing the warbler, not terribly high in bare trees near the w. edge of this park, roughly opposite a starbucks, as a landmark on the adjacent street, which is Union Square West, & a bit north of E. 15th St.
The Cape May (quite a drab bird as 1st-year females of that species can be, but not nearly the grayest I've ever seen in that plumage) then went down into low (but raised up from street-level) shrubs that partly surround a fully-fenced off dark statue, just below the above-noted area, & the warbler became extremely furtive in those shrubs; however I was able to click a number of ID-suitable photos in a short time, and at least one from under 5 yards. After its' brief showing in low perspective, it either went back into the shrubs, which are extremely dense evergreens, or possibly gave me the slip by going up & away to somewhere. I intentionally visited at an hour sort of similar to when Rob Bate had discovered this, & the sun on Tues. afternoon was certainly out in full, despite the comparative chill this cold-front passage day. I also took a much shorter time to see & photo. a couple of the other birds lately residing at this park, including Ovenbird, Common Yellowthroat (an adult male), & Swamp Sparrow with the usual throngs of both hungry and shopping humans, & the also-usual-in-winter White-throated Sparrows that Manhattan sees so long as major snows do not 'push' the latter on to the south. The Cape May Warbler might be a 'unique' species for the Lower Hudson CBC-2018 count (week), but compilers will confirm at a future point if that is so. And again, thanks to Rob Bate for some direction-info specific to that 1 warbler, & of course for the find. - - - - A note from an adjacent state (to NY), an adult-plumaged Yellow-throated Warbler (of the race albilora) turned up in Addison County, Vermont, and that occurence is in fact just one of many through the years in various northeast states & some of the Canadian maritime provinces, in December & also, in a number of cases over the decades, wintering birds. I myself have visited a modest number of wintering Yellow-throated Warblers in the greater northeast over the past 30+ years. Some, perhaps really all, were at least occasional, if not quite regular, at various home feeding stations. An eBird report with fun photos for anyone with interest in the VT sighting for 12/18/18: https://ebird.org/vt/view/checklist/S50782919 There are more than 100 records for Yellow-throated Warbler in the northeast states & Maritime provinces in the Dec. thru Feb. period, historically to present day. Also, a species such as Cape May (many of which “winter”, which actually can mean a stay of more than 6 months for some individuals, on Caribbean isles) is not as ‘rare’ as one may assume in the month of December in this region, but there are certainly not as many winter records of the latter warbler as for Yellow-throated. A good book, not the most up-to-date in many ways, but with a wealth of information on this sort of topic, and many others in its thorough text sections, is (late 20th century pub. date) “A Field Guide to North American Warblers” in the Peterson field guide series, authored by Jon L. Dunn & Kimball L. Garrett, which is still pretty available on-line & perhaps in some shops. good end of fall birding, 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/ --
