Riverdale, in western Bronx County, N.Y. City - Saturday, January 6th The ongoing MacGillivrays Warbler was seen, eventually -!!- on Saturday 1/6, in an area that is -we have been told- off-limits to birders, thus it should still be sought, looked-for, in just the public streets, both along W. 231 St., and to some extent along Independence Ave. very near that street / junction, and to the west of Independence - if all prior habits continue with the latter warbler as have been observed in the past two weeks, these public streets can offer ongoing chances to view this individual. We will see, however, what can be seen once the current snow (and rain, in N.Y. City) event does or does not do, in terms of further chances to observe these January warblers.
Of the 2 lingering rare / vagrant warblers visiting the yards and small to modest sized lots of West 231 Street, west of Independence Ave. - and now, adding Palisades Ave. west of Independence, and even a patch of the western end of Kappock Street where it meets Palisades Ave. -all of these are west of the Henry Hudson Parkway by a short distance- the Townsends showed more of its proclivity, already understood, for a much wider circuit, when spotted by visiting birder C. Centanni, with partner C.K. Jett, in the trees just west of Palisades Ave., and a bit south of W. 231 St., and then seen by a number of us in that area; shortly that Townsends sighting seemed to vanish, but not that long afterwards, the Townsends showed, same finder / re-finder, in more-difficult to observe trees up-slope from the corner area by Palisades Ave. and western Kappock St., looking up the steep slope and into various higher trees. The last-noted location would make for rather tough spotting unless a bird comes fairly low, or in much better lighting conditions; this is in the potential shadows of the rather tall nursing home building, esp. in the a.m.-hours. This may well be an area - - all being a part of that nursing home grounds, this means viewing ought to again be from the public streets, unless permission is specifically given to enter the private property of that nursing home - - this wider area may and likely is all a part of the Townsends wide foraging circuits, although: on ALL days up thru Friday, Jan. 5th, the only fully reliable location, ---with patience---, that the Townsends had regularly - ie, multiple times over a full day - visited, was a sole pine tree on the north side of West 231st, in a site splitting 2 private driveways about 40 yards / meters west of Independence Ave. - also, the Townsends had rarely or never visited the taller blue spruce tree which is fairly close to Independence Ave. on W. 231 Street - some birders have mistaken that for a Pine tree. The Pine tree is a true Pine, genus Pinus. Also of interest, and noted by a number of us in prior days, there are at least a few Yellow-belied Sapsuckers in the area, and the Townsends Warbler has been seen coming to some of the same trees where one or more sapsuckers may have left sap-wells from their drillings; so far, this does not look like a habit by this particular warbler, but it is a possibility if the Townsends here should linger on - it might, as some other late-and-wintering warblers and other passerine birds have done in cold climes in our region, begin to show more interest in sap-wells / drillings of the sapsuckers. Note - there are many birders coming daily to seek the 2 vagrant warblers at above locations, and not all are placing reports in eBird, and some may -not- be reporting anywhere. As of Saturday, as well as on Friday, more than 20 individuals came, for at least some time, seeking these warblers, which is down from 50-75 seekers in one day, at the first reports of each and immediate days after each bird was first seen. This note simply to make clear that many are still showing up; some have come across half of NY state, and from multiple counties, as well as at-least incidentally, arrivals who arrived from far-off states, and from other countries, i.e. folks who may have been off on holiday, or work, now in N.Y. City, as well as those visiting. Other birds were again noted in the immediate neighborhood, including while waiting for more appearances by these 2 rare-in-N.Y. warblers, including, on Saturday morning, a number of fly-over birds such as American Robins (many hundreds), Red-winged and possibly other Blackbirds (Rusty, one additional possibility) in the multiple-dozens, and some finches which included American Goldfinches. Raptors in the area, since Dec. 23rd when the MacGillivrays Warbler was first found, have included at least: Bald Eagles, Sharp-shinned and Coopers Hawks, Red-tailed Hawks, as well as American Kestrel, and there also have been sightings of Peregrine, which breed fairly close-by, and for non-raptors, fly-by vultures of our two species, at times in the past 2 weeks. Common Ravens are also in this area - and long have been - in addition to American Crows. At Van Cortlandt Park, also in western Bronx Co., a drake Redhead was still at the lake in that parks s.w sector, along with a fair variety of other waterfowl thru Sat., 1/6. The Redhead may move all around the lake, which can be viewed from multiple points with little difficulty, or a modest amount of walking. Good birding to all - and thanks to all who are reporting sightings, Tom Fiore manhattan -- (copy & paste any URL below, then modify any text "_DOT_" to a period ".") NYSbirds-L List Info: NortheastBirding_DOT_com/NYSbirdsWELCOME_DOT_htm NortheastBirding_DOT_com/NYSbirdsRULES_DOT_htm NortheastBirding_DOT_com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave_DOT_htm ARCHIVES: 1) mail-archive_DOT_com/nysbirds-l@cornell_DOT_edu/maillist_DOT_html 2) surfbirds_DOT_com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) birding_DOT_aba_DOT_org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: ebird_DOT_org/content/ebird/ --
