New York County (in N.Y. City), including Manhattan & Randall’s Island
Thursday, Jan. 28th: The Greater White-fronted Goose (of the form flavisrotsris) remained in Central Park to Thursday, found (& photo’d) at the Lake in the morning, although reported a bit later from the C.P. reservoir, which is where it had recently been fairly regular. On the lake, it had been amongst many Canada Geese, & just south of the Hernshead, roughly near W. 76th St. At Carl Schurz Park on Thursday, the long-lingering Western Tanager was seen as well as Orange-crowned Warbler; the warbler again near the south/s.w. side of Gracie mansion, in the n.w. sector of the park, & the tanager having been both by the 86th St. entrance area (off East End Ave.), as well as along that avenue in several trees and also within the park in a few locations - it’s sometimes rather skulking & inactive, and at others, can be fairly busy; some patience is often needed for sightings of either of these there. We don’t have a recent report of the Chelsea area W. Tanager (had been found on W. 22nd St., east of Tenth Ave.) but that other, first-to-be-reported W. Tanager of this winter season, may stlll be in that neighborhood, which has various fruit-holding trees on multiple streets. At Randall’s Island, an adult Yellow-crowned Night-Heron was continuing at the Little Hell Gate saltmarsh. … On Wednesday, 1/27, an historic find, the first of its species to be documented in 130 years [!], took place in Central Park with the find of a Snowy Owl, a first-year female with strong markings; the owl happily took up a day-long position in a closed-to-access fenced ballfield, & thus allowed good viewing with distancing, and also the welcome presence of Urban Parks rangers & parks police who helped answer questions to young and old, & even brought out a Parks-provided scope for some to view the owl more closely. The only observed potential difficulties that owl faced, as seen by many, was that a flock of (at one point in mid-morning) 50+ American Crows came mobbing & raising a ruckus, & yet - those crows behaved as much as though they, like all of the many human admirers, were a bit dumbstruck at this rare sight in the midst of a most-urban of urban parks. There were slightly more serious-looking threats from a couple of (local) Red-tailed Hawks, & also at one point a visit by an adult Cooper’s Hawk. But the owl held its ground in the ballfield’s infield area and was later (after dusk), seen to move freely & healthily fly off, with at least a part of the Parks rangers contingent watching all the way, to be certain the rare bird would be good-to-go (onward) which it clearly was. The species has been seen on a few occasions in Manhattan and at Governors Island, but those were birds seen by just a lucky few. This owl was able to be seen by hundreds, over the course of a day. Thanks to the original poster to eBird, who listed his name there simply as “Ben O.” and all observers were grateful as well to the owl sticking for the full day. Some news of the sighting went on local radio and tv, as well as at least a number of local newspaper sites. All observers were at some distance from the owl, thanks simply to the birds’ choice of a fenced sector within a big-city park and by luck, a gentle slope from which many could observe while also maintaining spatial distancing as regards best health practices. 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/ --
