Thursday, Feb. 3rd - at Central Park’s reservoir (in Manhattan, N.Y. City) & a few other notes.
It was an increasingly dreary and damp day for observing, although a bit of brightness in sky occured for a while in mid-morning. And the reservoir in Central did receive a lot of gulls visiting again - including *at least 6 species of gulls*, with highlights of (returning, for perhaps only a short visit) Black-headed Gull, as well as at least 1 Iceland Gull (possibly more than one, again) & also 1 or 2 (and perhaps more - some obs. reported 3 of this species at one time) of Lesser Black-backed Gull, and once again, a bare minimum of 850++, and more likely 1,000+ gulls of the more-expected 3 species, the majority by far being Ring-billed Gull, with [American] Herring Gull in 2nd slot as is typical, and for 3rd in numerical place, Great Black-backed Gull. The even rarer Slaty-backed of 2/2/’22 was of course being sought and scanned for, but with no successes reported or observed for Thursday 2/3/‘22, in all hours from quite early to end of day (when raining). There again was an adult bald Eagle making its hunting rounds, and in the immediate area, at least the 2 often-nearby Peregrines, as well as some Red-tailed Hawks & such which are always in the area in general - most of the other birds of prey that hunt in daytime being American Kestrel (obviously no threat to duckage nor to any gull) and Cooper’s Hawks, numbers of which also continue on in Manhattan thru this winter. A Pied-billed Grebe made a fresh appearance on the reservoir, & there have been some shuffling-up of duckage, which has included fly-bys of a number of species as well, esp. of Common Merganser, in modest numbers. (Red-breasted Mergansers continue in also-fair to modest no’s. all around the county, with almost all as is typical in the salt &/or brackish waters, on rivers and N.Y. harbor for the most part.) The Black-headed Gull (in adult plumage) was at the n. sector of the reservoir, at least for a part of afternoon, and may not have been present at all in the earlier part of the day nor as darkness started to fall. At times, there was at least a *very slim* chance that a larger, darker-backed and rare gull *might* have slipped in and out of the gull flock, at the reservoir, but with a lot of eyes still working through the many birds, this seems (much) less likely to have included Slaty-backed, for Thursday. It will be well worth checking that site (and any others where gulls are seen gathered) for many days ahead, and even for many weeks. Of course there were rather fewer observers out & about in such wet and not-so-lovely weather on the Thursday, yet there were easily more than 60 coming for views of the reservoir for all of the day, and perhaps more (which is a fraction of the many who came, some from some distance to see the rarest of gulls on Wednesday in same location; there were at least some who have actually seen Slaty-backed Gull in the regions in which they are anticipated and not-so-very-rare, or even a very few Wednesday visitors who have been where the species can truly be called regular.) . . . Just to add a note for a location on Manhattan and also a place where gulls will be found, a pair (hen and drake) of N. Pintails were nicely photo’d. (M. Ryan) on Thursday at Sherman Creek, the northwest extension of Swindler Cove Park, at and north of the eastern end of Dyckman St. on the upper Harlem River estuary. It should also be noted that, over the long-term, gulls of special note have occurred at the northern tip of Manhattan, at Inwood Hill Park’s lagoon and adjacent waters & mudflats. And then of course for gull-roost sites, it’s been apparent the areas on & around Randall’s Island; there are also at least modest gull gatherings or roost areas in many other locations around N.Y. County, albeit only rarely approaching the sheer no’s. of gulls on the Central Park reservoir with its recent ice-shelves and limited open water, in recent days. Probably much less-noticed in all the attention (rightly) to gullage, there have been some small but notable movements (perhaps all quite-local?) of American Robin, Common Grackle, and an assortment of smaller passerines which seem to include numbers of sparrows, in the past week, & into even a rather wet Thursday. I’ve not found clarity on the directionality, if much, of these small groups and flocks, but some might appear to be trending west or southwest, at times. The sightings have been (in my experience, & based in places having been in, of course) northern half of the county in particular, but also taking in some neighborhoods such as Upper East (to be at Carl Schurz Park) and west side, to 47th-48th Streets, as well as some locations in Harlem (in part to reach Randall’s Island, but also to the northernmost parts of Manhattan). And, at least the Carl Schurz Park (just east of East End Ave. in Manhattan) Western Tanager was present again on rainy-Thursday. - - - - - - - Although as extra-limital as can be while still in the ‘lower-48’, a very interesting sighting is the Oriental Turtle Dove which has been documented in Palo Alto, California - that individual is being looked at as a long-distance migrant, perhaps of the (migratory) sub-species ‘orientalis’, and is a highly unusual sighting in the state of California. It’s yet another of those species that are northeast-Eurasian (as in, Siberian and vicinity) of origins, a la the now-reknowned Steller’s Sea Eagle that has made rounds of N. America via Alaska to Texas to eastern Canada and most recently in Mass. & Maine. We should not however expect this turtle-dove species in the east. It’s been in the Pacific Northwest and more so in far-eastern Alaska before, and even in California previously, but is still exceedingly rare for there. It might be interesting if more sightings come along to see if there are any patterns of unusual movements by more birds out of both western Eurasia, or from such islands as Greenland, Iceland, or even from Scotland to Scandinavia (think certain geese), and of birds from far-eastern Eurasia, especially any that could be as far-ranging as the thus-far almost unequalled Steller’s Sea Eagle has been for such *unexpected* movement. We in the northeast also are not by any means the only to be finding odd weather happenings for this winter thus far; a lot seems to be stirring in the general climate over so much of this blue and green planet. good birding to all, 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/ --
