New York County (in N.Y. City) including Manhattan, Randall’s Island, and Governors Island Saturday, June 4:
The following warbler species were still present in N.Y. County on Sat., June 4th - additionally, all of these species were present in Central Park (in Manhattan), with seemingly lesser numbers (for diversity) in most of the other parks. However some of that is due to the great concentration of observers at Central. As just one example, a park that has great promise for both migrants and also some breeding-activity, Highbridge Park in northern Manhattan, is hugely under-birded even though some very keen obsevers work parts of that park with a lot of effort at times. This is just one of a number of larger green-spaces that have less-than-1% of the effort shown by/for a place that’s “on the map” as Central Park is, as a most-obvious ‘example' and contrast. That referring to numbers of observers and total-hours of observations by whatever total-numbers of observers. Indeed, this tends to show as esp. impressive some of the bird reporting that comes from various far-less birded (by most obs.) locations. The list of warblers below, in rough (and with my poss.-personal biases) order of numerical strength as of the day of this report…. Some recent ’shuffling” of a few species, such as Yellow Warbler (for ex.) as more realizations occur for potential-poss. breeders in some newly-watched locations. This also (again) reflects some of the species which may linger on all-summer (or a part of) and many (here) which may not attempt any breeding or even pairing at all; there are numerous such birds in this city and (I posit), in particular, in New York County. Some of those birds will be found in small green-spaces, as well as some in the larger parks of the county. American Redstart (multiple) Blackpoll Warbler (multiple) Yellow Warbler (multiple) Common Yellowthroat (multiple) Mourning Warbler (multiple, but not that many) Northern Parula (multiple, but not many) Ovenbird (multiple, but not that many) Black-and-white Warbler (multiple, but not many) Bay-breasted Warbler Northern Waterthrush Magnolia Warbler Canada Warbler Black-throated Blue Warbler Blackburnian Warbler (this and the preceding 5 spp. of warblers may have continued in the multiple; in any event, all running-late and would be expected to clear-out, headed on to breeding areas; there are prior [years of] early-June records of all the 14 spp. of warblers listed above in this county, and even some other warbler spp., but many become increasingly unlikely for the remainder of June, and some are rare for midsummer, until around early August or later, as general southbound migration picks up in volume.) Migration has continued on in the first several days of June, albeit harder to detect from a lot of the most-visited areas of this county. On Governors Island, some attention as elsewhere has turned to birds breeding, or lingering and potentially-breeding, alomg with what rather scant migrants continue to show. Similarly for Randall’s Island, where the nesting pair of Cliff Swallows have been accommodating for those visiting and intent on observing them. We do not have a recent report on the Cliff-Barn [hybrid] Swallow, a single bird which had been lingering near the Dyckman St. pier along the Hudson river in upper Manhattan however it’s quite possible that that bird is still in the area. Very modest numbers of some late-migrators that were still turning up and some pushing through (in addition to a majority of above warbler species) include E. Wood-Pewee, a few Empidonax [species], as well as cuckoos of each of our usual migrant species (& the at-least slight chance of Yellow-billed lingering), and a very few of the migrant thrush species, such as Swainson’s Thrush & the ‘gray-cheeked’ types, as well as few (and now quite late) Scarlet Tanagers and Indigo Buntings, both species which would be possible as breeders in the county. Also, even though some will be or are nesting, Red-eyed Vireo can push through quite late in some instances and at least a few of these might still be doing *just that*, rather than lingering on or attempting breeding. The season in this county has reached that point where attaining a tally of 100 (or more) species of birds on one day is increasingly difficult, if not no-longer possible, until sometime on the southbound migration, a portion of which will start in just a few more weeks. Some Spotted Sandpipers have been lingering, or just quite late to move on (and might be watched a bit, in case of any pairing-off noted). On sky-watch, there are still some Black & Turkey Vultures about, seen in particular from the n. sectors of Manhattan. Common Raven is a ‘regular' sighting even still, having been noted from around the county, esp. from points around Manhattan, but also possible to find -at times- from the remainder of the county. - - - - Many and diverse species of arthropods have been showing, and among these still more Monarch butterflies (and an increasing diversity of other butterflies) have been coming through, with some of those Monarchs observed laying eggs on milkweed plants even though most of the plants are yet to bloom. good 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/ --
