No Corn Crake, (RIP) but Pelham Bay Park was pretty good today. A leaking underground pipe, marked with an orange cone, has become another “puddle bird" attraction. The leak is on the SW corner of the grassy oval that leads to the Orchard Beach Promenade. I found four American Pipits, later a dozen more were seen by Brendan Keogh. It was the spot where our group found the Wilson’s Snipe a couple of weeks ago.
Bruno Attisani, a local photographer, who is often in the park in the early morning, had a Great Horned Owl on Hunter Island. In the parking lot, I tried for, but was unsuccessful in relocating the Black-headed Gull. While sorting the gulls a Peregrine dove down and briefly bathed in the puddle. I later met Bronx Brendan Keogh. Together we marveled at least a dozen Red-throated Loons, a dozen or so Double-crested Cormorants, a hundred or so gulls, a raft of Bufflehead and another raft of about 30 Ruddies enjoying a feeding frenzy right off the beach. There were most likely several other species out there and I was angry at myself for being too lazy to schlepp my scope. Gerry McGee met us too and the three of us had a nice morning doing the loop on Hunter Island. One can always count on Pelham Bay Park to produce enough species to keep things interesting. The proof is that the more birders that come here, the more great birds are found. If you’ve been keeping up with the recent posts, you are probably aware of that in the last few weeks, with more experienced and excellent birders, we’ve had lots of Nelson’s and a LeConte Sparrow, a Black-legged Kittiwake, Lapland Longspur, American Pipit, Black-headed Gull, Bonaparte’s Gulls and lots of the “regulars” including some interesting stuff like Nashville Warbler and a Great-crested Flycatcher, found a couple of days ago. During August, September and October we had a great variety of excellent shorebirds, easily seen and photographed in the puddles. Pelham Bay Park + More Birders = More Rarities! They are here, just not enough birders to locate them! Come on out! American Pipit Peregrine Falcon Sharp-shinned Hawk Coopers Hawk Red-tailed Hawk Red-throated Loon American Crow Herring Gull Ring-billed Gull Laughing Gull Great Black-backed Gull Bufflehead Ruddy Duck American Black Duck Double-crested Cormorant Golden-crowned Kinglet White-throated Sparrow Song Sparrow Red-bellied Woodpecker Yellow-bellied Sapsucker Tufted Titmouse Black-capped Chickadee Great Egret Great Blue Heron Canada Goose Brant Pied-billed Grebe Cowbird Mourning Dove Blue Jay Song Sparrow Jack Rothman cityislandbirds.com -- 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/ --
