Note, there was one report (positive!) for this Monday, for the male Western Tanager on Staten Island (Richmond County) NY, which was present in recent days, to this day 11/28 - the report from a birder on-scene (again, at Conference House Park near the southern-most site in NY State - the specific area where this bird was found on Sunday as well - DEP wetlands / bridge area.)
- - - - - Monday, 28 November, 2016 - A visit to Randall's Island, in the East River east of Manhattan- isIand proper (in New York City), produced an active Blue-gray Gnatcatcher feeding with a smaII group of more-expected species - it is of course "late" here for a gnatcatcher, but there have been a number of later occurrences in NY state, especiaIIy in SE NYS, into at Ieast December (and including in NYC in that month). In the moving flock were aIso at Ieast 2 American Tree Sparrows, & a few other migrant / winter-visitor sparrows, as weII as a couple of Black-capped Chickadees. The specific area on Randall's was near the southern edge, where an Amtrak train-bridge (high trestle) crosses and is connected to the Astoria section of Queens County, NYC - & even more specifically, south of ballfield #63, within a (signed) native plant garden on a steep, shore-facing slope. Diagnostic photographs were obtained of the gnatcatcher as well as the Am. Tree Sparrows and a further observer, David Barrett, of Manhattan, came along propitiously to view these nice birds around 1 pm on this Monday. A check of other areas of the island's varied habitats did not reveal tremendously more of birds, even rather common and expected species seemed sparse, or non-existent this fine-weather day. Also seen, but not unexpected at all for the date & that area were: Great Blue Heron, Black-crowned Night-Heron (3), Double-crested Cormorant, Atlantic Brant (many), Canada Goose (many), American Black Duck, Mallard, Red- tailed Hawk, American Kestrel, Belted Kingfisher, & a flock of about 125+ Brown-headed Cowbirds, plus assorted other (even more-common) species. Birds on the near-waters seemed very, very sparse, in the time I was there, just a few hours in mid-morning to early afternoon. A check of a park on Manhattan's upper-east side did not reveal much, in afternoon hours. (This was about my 200th visit to Randall's Island for birding over the past 4 decades.) - - - - - On recent (in the past week) forays into mid- and down- town Manhattan parks & green-spaces, besides City Hall Park & the adjacent church yards / cemeteries just south, I've visited, among others, Stuyvesant- town and Stuyvesant Cove park, various East River park spaces, community gardens and Tompkins Square Park on the "lower-east-side", a few small parks farther south, and Battery Park, Battery Park City Park, and some of the areas where a Couch's Kingbird appeared a year ago (in the "West Village" neighborhood), Union Square Park, Madison Square Park, and assorted other small mid-town parks and green-spaces, along with Central & Riverside & in northern Manhattan, Fort Tryon & Inwood Hill & Swindler Cove & Sherman Creek Parks, on various of the past 7 days, with not a great many species, and nothing especially "new or notable" in avian life, beyond expected species - Gray Catbirds, & so forth, & so on &, ad infinitum :-) - with the exception of the seen-by-throngs-Western-Tanager (that the nyc mayor ordered-in and other rather unexpected downtown species, which have been reported here in recent days). -- -- -- speaking of vagrants (and kingbirds in particular, now), here are photos - taken by another birder - out in Lancaster County PA (that's Pennsylvania) not many days ago of the Tropical Kingbird that HAD been out there - maybe was last seen on Thanksgiving Day (?) - https://www.flickr.com/photos/jmckayak/ (for nice pix of that Kingbird) ------------------ not-birds-note: All who wish to support fact-based journalism over the coming weeks, months and years may want to take out a paid subscription to your newspaper or magazine of choice - real support to actual news- gathering and working-reporter organizations, they will need that support, now more than ever - well-informed citizens make good citizens, and help to build better and stronger democratic nations. good birding, 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/ --
