2 Manhattan (N.Y. City) notes for Friday, 9/25: the American Bittern found & photographed by Danny Karlson, and seen by others later, was the likely bird-of-the-day for the county, at Inwood Hill Park (at the marsh area, where there also was, appropriately enough, a Marsh Wren, this latter one of at least 5 so far in the county (2 of those previously seen & photo’d. in Central Park’s north end, in the same week).
---- On the Queens County (NYC) Yellow-headed Blackbird and questions of origin / status - Regarding the status of the adult male Yellow-headed Blackbird that’s been seen & photographed regularly for more than a week, at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens County, NY, this bird is on closer inspection, in some state an odd disarray of its plumage, which does not seem to me and other much more keen observers, to be simply due to or consistent with natural molt or wear. Thanks to Paul Sweet, who as collections manager at the American Museum of Natural History is familiar with plumage in general on many species from direct contact with so many birds as part of his work at the museum & in field expeditions. And thanks also to Dr. S. Mitra, who is also familiar with many species & molt in many of them as well. Now what has happened with this particular bird; perhaps we will never know - yet the particulars here do seem to imply a possible period of captivity - strange, as these gentlemen referenced have noted (& some others, in off-list comm.) yet, in some decades of observing birds, and also human behavior in New York City (& ‘round the world), this sort of thing, that even this species might have been an object of some bird-catcher (wherever that took place?) might be left open to possibility. Stranger things have happened, even if this hypothesis seems to make little sense. Another in-flight photo of this Queens County, NY individual was made on 20 Sept. by A. Regler, and is in the Macaulay library at: https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/264301861? Is it even posible that some encounter / mishap by the bird alone could result in the trimmed-up feathers of the primary (flight) feathers and some of the tertial (tail) feathers (?) - I can’t say, unqualified and also at a loss with what ‘accidental' situation might be a way this would happen… although, again - strange things can occur. I took down the book “New World Blackbirds - The Icterids” (in the Helm identification series), by Alvaro Jaramillo & Peter Burke (1999) and while this may not represent the most-recent info. & certainly not all that’s been published, there are references; one I noticed, while very old, did refer to the species as “being sold in the Havana [Cuba] market [Ramsden, 1912]” - and there are also references concerning longer-distance vagrancy by this species, which include the note, “In the Western Palearctic, there is a July record in Iceland, several in Great Britain, an early fall record in France, an Oct. record from Denmark…[etc.]” - &, “Not all European records are regarded as being of wild origin”. - [Klimkiewicz, M.K. and A.G. Futcher, 1987]. A majority of this species’ population likely winters in Mexico, but vagrancy throughout eastern N. America is regular & rather well-known. Although presumed rare so very far north, there are at least a few specimen-records from localities as far north as Barrow, Alaska and James Bay, Ontario, as well as northern Yukon territory in Canada. As an aside, my first sighting of this species was the not-too-common discovery (for myself, that is!) of a wintering flock of well over 250 individuals, many of them brightly plumaged males, in southern Arizona nearly 3 decades ago. A stunning bird, even if that common in some parts of N. America - and, 'so nice they named it twice’: Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus. Perhaps the status, or “what is going on there?” of the recent Queens Co. bird will remain a bit of a mystery… Good weekend birding, Tom Fiore manhattan -- 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/ --
