New York County -in N.Y. City- including Manhattan, Randalls Island and Governors Island thru Thursday, April 18th -
The ongoing male Blue Grosbeak in lower-east Manhattan was seen into the late-day of Thursday, in the area of East 3rd St. and Ave. A, and may have moved on a bit from that area - further observations may tell. This bird was more active again, and hopefully had good feeding in the stay at small greenspaces of the areas it had been visiting. Some early-side arrivals included E. Kingbird at both Randalls Island southern end, and Central Parks north end on Thursday, and also at Central Park, Yellow-throated Vireo in the north end, in addition to the slight increase of Blue-headed Vireos more-generally. 2 additional vireo spp. have been reported, and each may be correctly ID'd although these are not fully-confirmed as of yet, each will soon-enough be the most common of vireo species in Manhattan and both breed on the island. A number of the early-arrivals of neotropical-wintering songbirds that first showed seem to have moved-on quickly - just one example, rather early here was Worm-eating Warbler, of which some were already on-territories well north of N.Y. City this week, although far more of any and all of such early-arrivers will be expected in the coming weeks, such as our two breeding species of orioles, and tanagers, Indigo Buntings, and others. A very nice count of at least 23 Purple Sandpipers was made at the rocky shoreline of Governors Island on Thursday, 18th and there had been a flyby Iceland Gull seen from that island on the 17th. Also showing in those 2 days were at least five warbler spp., including Ovenbird and Black-and-white Warbler, and a good variety of migrant sparrows, as well as Blue-headed Vireos, and many other migrants as well as some breeding species. In N.Y. County, it appears that of the 16 or more migratory American warblers that showed in the past week or so, just half that number of species were still being found thru Thursday, 18th. A Hooded Warbler on Wed., April 17th at Madison Square Park in Manhattan drew far fewer observers than the first-of-spring in the county not long before, at Central Park. More of all those warblers, and of additional species are likely to come along fairly soon. Most parks, greenspaces, gardens, larger churchyards and the like have seen good passage of sparrows and their relatives, with a few species now getting scarcer here, such as Fox Sparrow. Thanks to so many keen observers, and many photographers, out and about recently in the county finding and reporting many migrants and other birds. Good birding to all, Tom Fiore manhattan -- (copy & paste any URL below, then modify any text "_DOT_" to a period ".") NYSbirds-L List Info: NortheastBirding_DOT_com/NYSbirdsWELCOME_DOT_htm NortheastBirding_DOT_com/NYSbirdsRULES_DOT_htm NortheastBirding_DOT_com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave_DOT_htm ARCHIVES: 1) mail-archive_DOT_com/nysbirds-l@cornell_DOT_edu/maillist_DOT_html 2) surfbirds_DOT_com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) birding_DOT_aba_DOT_org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: ebird_DOT_org/content/ebird/ --
