N.Y. County, including Manhattan, Randall’s Island, Governors Island, & the waters surrounding:
Very little in evidence for migration here over the past week, yet there’ve been some uncommon-in-the-county birds. One species that’s not been observed by that many while in this county - Black Skimmer - has been appearing, especially at dusk & dawn, and the hours between the former & the latter, for those watching in some of those hours; some sightings as has been for other years around the end of spring, into summer, are from points along the Hudson river, esp. lower Manhattan and by the harbor. Black Skimmers also can & have occured in Central Park, coming in at night to feed or at least investigate the waterbodies there. Chances of seeing this in full daylight are usually a lot lower here, but on occasion that may also happen. A Black Vulture was photographed (C. Weiner) flying over Governors Island on 6/17. There’ve been a few recent (Manhattan) sightings of Monk Parakeets, a species with established breeding in a number of places in N.Y. City, & which has bred on Manhattan too, albeit not known to often, or regularly. And, for birds that “should have” moved on north by now, we have at least a few lingering species that aren’t known to nest in this county - and some of these may have been lingering for quite a long time now; Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, at Tompkins Square Park - and possibly also lingering elsewhere - is one. There are reports of more than one N. Parula at Central Park, and at least one, a singing male, has been in the Ramble area for many weeks, if not longer. There also were still at least a few other lingering warblers at Central Park this week, including Ovenbird, Black-and-white Warbler, and American Redstart, as well as the 2 warbler species that have nested in Manhattan, Common Yellowthroat and Yellow Warbler (these last two species a bit more regular in northern Manhattan as well as on the outlying islands in the county). Some White-throated Sparrows also continue, as is somewhat regular (in very small numbers) each summer here, scattered thru various parks & greenspaces - as I’ve noted before, the latter are not known to nest, they’re individuals that linger all summer, perhaps also staying on into winter as well. Yellow-billed Cuckoo was still being seen as of last weekend here, and that species could at least *potentially* nest in the county, although might not have been documented to have done so. Since some individuals of the 2 regular migrant cuckoo species are often very late migrants, the occurence of that species at any time in June is not too odd here. [N.B., there is a photo/video-documented Swainson’s Thrush sighting from the Brooklyn bridge park for June 17th (this year) which is of course just across the East River from lower Manhattan. That’s a very late (or lingering-locally) bird whether or not it is going to move any farther north this year. And also extremely late, a male Black-throated Green Warbler was found & photo’d. at Astoria Park in n.-e. Queens County, which also is essentially just across the East River from upper-east Manhattan island, that also on June 17th. As some may be aware, there’s been a single (adult) male Evening Grosbeak seen for some days & at least to June 15th at Fire Island, in Suffolk County NY, visiting a feeder; presumably all on its own! Each of these sightings are in eBird, from separate observers.] … If the number of active observers for mid-June, esp. seeking out migratory landbirds, was similar to the number of such observers in May (when the observers in this area, of that variety of birds, number in *at least* an order of magnitude more) it is possible we’d have some further ‘surprise’ sightings of this type in this and really in many areas. All notes in this paragraph simply to make the point that unexpected, and sometimes unusual things happen well after the peak of spring bird migration, and well before most south-bound movement. Many, many birds have been busy nesting, with some already having fledged young, and others tending nests with young at various stages, as well as sitting on eggs. But there are at least some long-distance migrants that have already been detected headed south - south of the U.S. border, that is, such as at least a few phalaropes & also Purple Martins, and most likely a few additional species that are on the move; not *all* of any species, but some. good weekend (& Juneteenth) birding to all, 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/ --
