Saw Mill River Audubon's Summer Solstice walk tonight atop the Croton Point Park landfill grasslands (7:30-9:15pm) not only offered scope viewing of three moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn but interesting observations of three grassland birds singing at dusk:
* Grasshopper Sparrows (5) four different birds were seen & heard singing, another seen chasing one of the singers between 7:30-8:30pm. Also interesting to hear their extended chittering song at dusk (~9:00pm) * Eastern Meadowlarks (2) pair seen flying by ~8:15pm & one heard singing at dusk * Bobolinks (8) at least two females & six males seen, males singing between 7:45-8:45pm A morning check of the landfill grasslands ~7:30am twice this week had only Bobolinks singing. But both Grasshopper Sparrows & Eastern Meadowlarks were easily heard tonight. Also from visit this morning: five Purple Martins were continuing to visit and sing from the perches of the new martin nesting structure across from the park office. Two were observed going in the gourds, one carrying plant material. Additional note: Croton Point Park officially closes at dusk and park staff does make rounds to move visitors out at that point. This walk had special permission to stay a bit later. Best bet if visiting late in the day is to park in the ballfield parking on the left of the entrance road, before the park entrance booth, and walk up the landfill from there. (This same lot is typically full of worker vehicles between ~7:00am and ~4:00pm due to an ongoing Metro North construction project.) -- Anne Swaim Saw Mill River Audubon www.sawmillriveraudubon.org -- 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/[email protected]/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/ --
