Two short notes: Surely birders from all over N. America and beyond are aware of the ongoing disaster that Hurricane Harvey & its aftermath are bringing to Texas, in particular and that the effects on birds, and places many of us have been or will be wanting to visit for birding, are potentially enormous. Any help that can be sent on to people & organizations in the affected area will be appreciated and needed for a very long time to come. The areas that are affected include those which host many of the birds - not only the species but the actual individual birds - that we observe in our home states & regions, and provinces in Canada, as SE Texas in particular sees so many of the migrants of our continent pass through on migration, south (now into December) and north, as well as typically hosting vast, nearly uncountable millions upon millions of birds of hundreds of species for parts of the year. We will surely be hearing much more on all of this as the storm’s effects are better understood in coming days, weeks, months and, sad-to-say, years.
On a far happier note, congrat’s to all of the participants, organizers and supporters who made the latest NY pelagic (as noted to this list via Sean Sime’s recent report) a great success. It is wonderful to see more exploration of one of the “last frontiers” in birding in NY state (even if there are many other frontiers to learn from, such as nocturnal flight call ID, migratory-path & phenology work, high-mountain bird-nesting & passage, wetlands, meadows, & urban-exurban breeding & movements, etc. etc. & much more) with the ocean waters of the place we call “Earth” being of course the bulk of the surface of this fragile “blue” planet. There is a lot of life out in those seas! __________ Central Park, Manhattan, N.Y. City - Sat.-Sun.-Mon., August 26-27-28, 2017 24 Warbler species were found in the above 3-day period, with at least 21 species found on Sunday. None of the species noted is “early” in the season, the peak of warbler diversity on “fall” migration in the NYC area and the greater region is NOW, right in with a typical peak for shorebird (wader, to most of the world) diversity here as well. Later in Sept. on into Oct., great numbers of individuals (in warblers) may appear to be moving (and are) but the bulk of those are composed of a far more limited diversity of species. Blue-winged Warbler (multiple) Tennessee Warbler (multiple) Northern Parula (multiple) Yellow Warbler (multiple) Chestnut-sided Warbler (multiple) Magnolia Warbler (few) Cape May Warbler (minimum of 2, both adults) Black-throated Blue Warbler (multiple) Black-throated Green Warbler (few; at least 3) Blackburnian Warbler (several) Pine Warbler (at least 2 adults) Prairie Warbler (multiple) Bay-breasted Warbler (multiple) Blackpoll Warbler (minimum of 3, the first seen on Sat. 8/26; 2 different indiv. by Sunday 8/27; not early) Black-and-white Warbler (multiple, but diminished numbers) American Redstart (by far the most numerous warbler sp. in the past week++) Worm-eating Warbler (several, in both north end & the Ramble, on all 3 days) Ovenbird (at least several) Northern Waterthrush (multiple, but diminished numbers by Mon.) Mourning Warbler (multiple, at least 5 individuals found Sat.-Sun., still some thru Mon.) Common Yellowthroat (uncommon so far this season, but multiple on all above days) Hooded Warbler (at least several, north end, Ramble, & SE part of park) Wilson's Warbler (fewer by Mon.) Canada Warbler (fewer by Mon.) Additional migrants in, or over (as fly-overs) Central on the above 3 days have included: Double-crested Cormorant (some migrants, as well as the usual visitors) Great Blue Heron (lingering bird in the park lately) Great Egret Snowy Egret (fly-bys seen from n. end of park) Green Heron Black-crowned Night-Heron Wood Duck (3) Gadwall (4) American Black Duck (few) Northern Shoveler (1) Osprey (multiple fly-overs) Bald Eagle (fly-over - Sat.) American Kestrel (possible migrants beginning, but also many nearby residents in area) Spotted Sandpiper (multiple, max. of 7 seen on Sunday at one site, the reservoir entire) Least Sandpiper (reservoir) Laughing Gull (max. of 8 on Mon., w/ more than 400 other typical-sp. of gulls, reservoir) Ring-billed Gull [American] Herring Gull Great Black-backed Gull Black-billed Cuckoo (thru Monday) Yellow-billed Cuckoo (to at least Sunday) Chimney Swift (major movement in past week) Ruby-throated Hummingbird (many migrating) Belted Kingfisher (Saturday) Yellow-shafted Flicker (fair numbers starting to move) Olive-sided Flycatcher (as reported on the Great Hill/north end of park Sat. by Karen Fung) Eastern Wood-Pewee (many ongoing, most moving on by Mon. night) Yellow-bellied Flycatcher (multiple, with several photographed nicely) Empidonax [genus] Flycatcher (multiple, not identified to species-level) Willow/Alder Flycatcher (some Empidonax in this "species-pair") Least Flycatcher (small no’s. of Empidonax ID’d as this species) Eastern Phoebe (first migrants beginning - very modestly early) Great Crested Flycatcher (many w/migration beginning to peak) Eastern Kingbird (many dozens thru Saturday, then diminishing) White-eyed Vireo (Sun.) Yellow-throated Vireo (at least several) Warbling Vireo (many now migrating) Philadelphia Vireo (a few poss. sightings, but unconfirmed, Sun.) Red-eyed Vireo (multiple, now migrating in addition to the Ramble & north end breeding families) Tree Swallow (small numbers noted as fly-throughs) Northern Rough-winged Swallow (few noted) Barn Swallow (fairly common migrants, most fairly high as fly-overs) House Wren (few migrants yet) Ruby-crowned Kinglet (the first of what will soon be many, Sunday) Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (few) Veery (numbers dropping off by Mon., but still present as migrants) Swainson's Thrush (several well-documented, thru Sun.- “early-ish") Wood Thrush (few remaining after another difficult breeding year, & some also migrants this week) Gray Catbird (seem to be many ongoing breeding-residents) Cedar Waxwing (modest no’s. might include some wanderers, in addition to typical late-breeders) Warbler species (many passed thru on a.m. flights, esp. American Redstart) Scarlet Tanager (very few and still modestly early - these also breed in more than one Bronx park) Chipping Sparrow (few, those now are likely just post-breeding from Central) Bobolink (modest no’s. noted, all are early a.m. fly-overs, so far this season) Red-winged Blackbird (many migrants moved thru, a typical time for an earlier movement, ahead of the better-known movements in late fall) Common Grackle (very modest no’s. also have moved thru) Brown-headed Cowbird (some movement seen) Baltimore Oriole (migration picking up, a complex pattern that continues for many months) American Goldfinch (few, some or all perhaps local NYC late-breeders & some wanderers) - - - - Tues., 29 August, 2017… the vast bulk of the migrants of these past few days and the past week appear to have moved on, not surprisingly. However, there was a very interesting phenomenon, of a bit of diurnal early-morning drop-in, of some warblers-vireos-thrushes & a smattering of other land-birds, thru the northern fringes of Central Park at first light and for about 1/2 hour past sunrise-hour. That movement did not seem to result in any (or anyhow, almost any) drop-in for the migrants, but it may have been the tip of a larger, probably much larger movement that was passing esp. to the north of the areas of Central. I went into a few areas out of the park, including smaller local green-spaces, to see if I might detect any movement or lingering migrants, & did not. And many hours later, thru some areas to mid-Manhattan, on a chance that there was a bit of drop-in, but again found little evidence, including in green-spaces directly on / along the east shore of the Hudson River (for ex., Clinton Cove, & portions of Riverside South & Riv. Park proper all in the same vicinity). In any event, while scattered migrants were still about in the mid-day period on Tuesday, it seemed that as many as a dozen+ warbler spp. (with many hundreds of individual warblers) and also fair numbers of other small land-bird migrants have moved on, in daylight; not atypical of the sort of weather in an approcahing weather-system, on NE/East winds at this time of the year. Not too likely any true-coastal locations saw a long-lasting (if any) diurnal/observed flight of passerine or land-birds - in the SE NY region, this a.m. (?) For shorebirds & other migrants, though… hoping to hear of a few more observations from the region…(?) A look at the reservoir before noon on Tues. did not reveal too much; a single N. Shoveler may or may not have moved on, & Wood Duck & a few other duck species were not found, but just may have been amongst the more tightly-packed swarm of gullage and gobs of mallard. At least 2 Laughing Gulls were noted in with the typical gulls. Raptor migration has commenced, of course beginning even as early as late July for some species such as Osprey. I was on Hook Mt., in eastern Rockland Co., NY in the mid-afternoons of both last Thursday & Friday, and on Sat.-Sun. Steve Bauer was there, to count some of the migrant raptors, after last Wed. saw the first of countable raptors pass that official watch-site - Bald Eagle, as noted/recorded by Steve Sachs, for Wednesday. A very modest few Broad-winged Hawks, Osprey, and some more Bald Eagles are among the early raptors so far counted from that site, which is along the Hudson river a short way north of the town of Nyack. Other hawk-watch sites in the region are also now up & counting! Also worth a mention is a Cape May Warbler seen at the summit on Hook Mt. as reported by Steve Bauer this past weekend. That site can produce interesting passerine migrants, most esp. in very early hours, &/or in foggy conditions & certain winds in the raptor-counting months. A few (other) sites in the greater northeast have already had triple-digit Broad-winged Hawk tallies. (all about just getting out & watching for them!) - - - - - Additional notes, for those interested in insect diversity: 20 species of wasp were found in an afternoon, on Sunday, Aug. 27, & identified through detailed photographs in just the north end of Central Park. A very few of the ID’s are still in process of being verified, but most are positive ID’s & this number of species of that insect group is not unprecedented at this time of year, given sufficient attention & later, work on photo-ID’s. All of the identifications & essentially all of the finds were thanks to Mike Freeman, who is working with this group of insects in particular, along with his frequent collaborator Ken Chaya, both of Manhattan. While accompanying Mike on this wasp-quest on Sunday, we also happened on at least 2 individuals of an uncommon butterfly species for the area: White-M Hairstreak. This is a near-annually occurring species, but can easily pass undetected as it somewhat resembles 2 other more-usual hairstreak species found at this time of year. We also found 8 or more Red-banded Hairstreaks on Sunday, which have been having another good year in the NYC region, including in Central Park. We failed to locate a Gray Hairstreak for the day, although that species can be found in fall & has been seen in Central Park just recently, in the multiple in some cases. Our White-M Hairstreaks were photographed as were many of the wasp species. In several days, a list may be compiled, and if anyone is interested, I can either privately forward or direct to a website with photo-links. A good variety of butterflies have been documented in Central Park this summer, so far including such rare or uncommon sightings as: Giant Swallowtail, American Snout, the 3 Hairstreak species noted above, Variegated Fritillary, Common Buckeye (not at all common in Central Park), & some other species, most of them rather common thru our region, but rare or irregular in Central Park as the habitat there for many skippers and certain other butterfly species is somewhat limited. We have had the typical & usually fairly-common Monarch butterflies, which can increasingly breed in Central Park thanks to some plantings of various milkweed species, so that a number of sightings of this well-known species may (thus far) not be just migrants, which become more likely as the summer ends, in most southbound movements for the species, as they start heading in the direction of central Mexico. good birding, and all-nature observing, 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/ --
