New York County -in N.Y. City- including Manhattan, Randalls, Governors, and Roosevelt Islands and the adjacent waters and skies above - Saturday, August 10th, and Sunday, August 11th -
A Red-necked Phalarope -a very good sighting in any sector of N.Y. City- was found quite serendipitously, as a keen storm-watching and general observer, J. Suzuki was arriving, not first-thing in morning, to the pier nearest West 70th St. on the Hudson River, off Manhattan, on Saturday, Aug. 10th - the phalarope, which was also well-photographed, was then also seen presto-pronto by 3 other keen watchers who had already been out by the tip of that same pier. The others happy to view this rarer shorebird included M.B. Kooper, L. LaBella, and E. Leonardi, who were on-scene at the pier. No later reports of this phalarope were made, unfortunately - yet another of the bounty of very-unexpected shorebirds to grace the county in the aftermath of storm-Debby. That storm, incidentally had effects starting in the Caribbean, and then on thru much of eastern North America on into the city of Montreal Canada, where a new one-day record was established for rainfall - the storm also moving beyond that city in subsequent post-tropical motion. A Whimbrel was -additionally- seen -and photographed in-flight- by N. Dawson, at one additional location by the Gansevoort peninsula of lower Manhattan along the Hudson River, on Friday, August 9th, after the northern-Manhattan observers had been seeing that species fly past, on the same day. Again, this is one of multiple exceedingly-rare sightings of particular shorebird species for N.Y. County and Manhattan island, from the remnants-of-storm-Debby watching by county birders. August 10th also brought a report of 600+ -Six-hundred-plus- Semipalmated Sandpipers flying past Governors Island, which might be a record-high number of that species to be -called-, as flybys for N.Y. County, although some perhaps could be classed simply as -peep-sp. or, in more precise vocabulary, a group of the smaller Calidris -genus of- Sandpipers - of which Semipalmated is certainly very-expected at this time of year, and in such good numbers, although these perhaps pushed a little in this county, by the passage of storm-Debby-remnants and the effects on bird movements from that passage. Laughing Gulls were seen in some locations on the passage - as well as just-before- of storm-Debby-remnants in numbers higher than typically noted, but it may be that not all of those sightings were directly-related to the storm-remnants passing. There were apparently no unusual species of gulls noted -with reliable documentation- in any recent period in N.Y. County. A previously-noted Glossy Ibis was still present at Randalls Island to August 10th as seen by multiple observers again there. Also continuing for some observers there have been Yellow-crowned Night-Herons, on some occasions up to three being found. At Roosevelt Island, a hen Wild Turkey was lingering on - and on, and on. This turkey has been seen there for months on end by now. Several sightings took place in Central Park, in Manhattan, which include reports of Alder Flycatcher and also Blackburnian Warbler, and various other migrants, on Aug. 11th - these reports, particularly for that species of Empidonax, come from a serious observer who is affiliated with the wonderful conservation-org. - Jocotoco Foundation of Ecuador, is associated with BirdLife Intertnational, is a long-time contributor to the bird-recordings audio library of Xeno-Canto org. and so forth, and also has been an associate at University of Edinburgh -Scotland- on scientific and ornithological studies and researches, and who is very familiar with neotropical migrant birds - including those two species noted above - both species fully-expected now as migrants thru N.Y. City and the broader region. And, separately but also from Central Park in Manhattan, a first-of-the-fall migration Mourning Warbler was among the over 1-dozen warbler species seen at Central Parks Ramble area, on Sunday, Aug. 11th. By now there have been more than 2-dozen species of migratory American warblers found in the county - and all of those species have been recorded for Central Park as well - in this southbound-migrating season. A modest number have been of more boreal-nesting species. This also in-line with such boreal nesters as Olive-sided Flycatchers having been passing, already this season. And by now such warbler species as Yellow Warbler and American Redstart have become quite numerous on passage, and some especially the latter also lingering in some locations for many days. There have been ongoing sightings of such typically early-southbound species as Worm-eating Warbler, a species which can nest in the area very near N.Y. City as well as farther-out to the north. Many many more migrants have been seen in the past week or less, and still-more are certainly passing through, and will be in coming days and nights. Thanks to all of many active observers and photographers in the county, finding all sorts of birds and sharing via the alerts systems, such as in Discord, and for some areas in GroupMe and WhatsApp alerting systems, and of course in reports via eBird locally and worldwide too. 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/ --
