Sunday, 29 December, 2013 mid / lower east of Manhattan, N.Y. City -
I decided to take a bike ride thru & around mid- and down-town areas of Manhattan (N.Y. City) earlier (ahead of the rain) today, and walk in various smaller parks & green-spaces as well as a focus on the area, as reported to this list at least to 8 days ago, of the male Varied Thrush that was first discovered on Sun. Dec. 15th by Louise Fraza and also photographed by Pearl Broder, in doing the (overall) Lower Hudson CBC, and specifically covering the large grounds at Stuyvesant-town, a rather attractive area to a variety of birds including some that are not especially common as overwinterers or late- fall lingerers... (I assume that a Varied Thrush is the rarest overall of birds to have made an appearance there, even with the surprisingly good variety of species seen there over the years by sharp-eyed local birders.)
I was NOT successful in re-finding that thrush. My route included parts of the grounds in Stuyvesant-town including of course the primary area the thrush had frequented thru at least Dec. 21st, & many surrounding parts of the grounds, as well as some of the streets nearby, particularly 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, & 20th Streets, from First Ave. to Third Ave., as well as farther out to some of the small gardens & pocket parks of the lower east side, to Tompkins Square Park, and also Washington Square & Union Square & Madison Square & then (no longer expecting that thrush!) at Bryant Park, as well as a few locations in the more immediate vicinity of Stuyvesant-town. On a number of side streets, particularly 16th, 17th, & 18th Sts. I noticed small numbers of American Robins in areas east of Third Ave. to First Ave. & took a look at small patches of greenery in any areas that looked a bit promising. I also saw & heard American Robins in most of the parks just mentioned although in some, they were few. I found the fewest, and perhaps fewest bird spp. overall, at Washington Square Park but admittedly that may have been due to lower effort there. The one park where I encountered a few species of modest note for the date was in Union Square Park, with Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Hermit Thrush, Swamp Sparrow (a dullish individual in with multiple White-throated Sparrows, the latter spp. fairly regular in winter in most of Manhattan's green spaces of any size, if one looks), and as noted, some American Robins... & yes, I did peer into the gated (& thus ever-intriguing) Gramercy Park, which seems to have some shrubbery that could hide a thrush or three, in looking in and imagining such! I found Bryant Park to be filled with tourists and arriving skaters to the rink there, with easily 2,000 people already in that not-so-huge space by 9:45 or so... of course that area will possibly host far greater numbers of people in about 55 hours from now as the year 2013 is rung out...
Tom Fiore Manhattan -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
