Central Park NYC Saturday May 28, 2016 OBS: Robert DeCandido, Deborah Allen, m.ob. on bird walks starting from 7:30am & 9am at the Boathouse.
Late in the 9am walk some of us went up to the Great Hill to look for the Dickcissel the group had seen on Friday morning. The Dickcissel was found Friday by a British couple on the walk and identified by Bob. I'm happy to report that everyone in the group who trekked up to the north end Saturday got great looks at the bird. Karen Fung's tweet at around 7:30am this morning was very helpful as were Bok Tsim & Lee who had the bird in view when our group arrived at the Great Hill late this morning. Gadwall - pair Lake Great Egret - flyovers Black Vulture - flyover west of the park at about 105th Street & Broadway Yellow-billed Cuckoo - Summer House Chimney Swift - flyovers Red-bellied Woodpecker - Maintenance Field Downy Woodpecker - Maintenance Field & pair at Tupelo Field\ Eastern Wood-Pewee - heard Empidonax Flycatcher - one or two Great Crested Flycatcher - 2 Humming Tombstone, 1 Maintenance Field Eastern Kingbird - pair Lake Warbling Vireo - various locations Red-eyed Vireo - various locations Barn Swallow - 4 over the Lake House Wren - one or two singing south/west Blowdown & Scharf Gardens (Deb before walk) Wood Thrush - heard east of the Pool (Deb before walk) Gray Catbird - many Ovenbird - heard Scharf Gardens (Deb before walk) Common Yellowthroat - Warbler Rock (7:30am walk) American Redstart - 7 Yellow Warbler - Willow at the Oven (7:30am walk) Blackpoll Warbler - 10 - 3 of these at the Point Yellow-rumped Warbler - (7:30am walk) Prairie Warbler - singing male Alice In Wonderland Statue (Bob before 7:30 walk) Eastern Towhee - male (7:30 walk) Dickcissel - first-spring (first-cycle) male Great Hill Red-winged Blackbird - Turtle Pond Baltimore Oriole - pairs Why is the Dickcissel a first-spring male? The black on the throat is veiled with white. The tertials (inner flight feathers of the wing next to he body) are very worn. Most young Dickcissels don't molt these in fall. The outer tail feathers (a.k.a. rectrices) are tapered. The outer tail feathers are the feathers seen on the underside of the folded tail. Check out the tail feather on the bird's right side. See Pyle, Peter. 1997. Identification Guide to North American Birds, Part I. The Dickissel is on pages 623-624. Here are links to some photos of the Dickcissel from today in which you can see the points I've mentioned: http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=18238718 http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=18238719 http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=18238720 Deb Allen -- 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/ --
