Manhattan, N.Y. City - Wednesday, Sept. 11th While we in New York all recognize, respect and remember this solemn date in our recent history, we also find some solace in seeing the migrations of birds and in all of nature in action as well.
The day brought still more bird activity, with a nice fresh arrival of vireos amongst many many other migrants, and in several locations in Manhattan, PHILADELPHIA Vireos were found, and also photographed again. This again did include at Central Park where among others, observers on not-for-profit guided bird-walks were seeing this species, led by those working with such orgs as the NYC Bird Alliance - who offer walks all around N.Y. City in migration and also year-round, the American Museum of Natural History Central Park walk-series, and the Linnaean Society of New York multiple-leaders many guided walks. These not-for-profit orgs and their walk-leaders are all conservation and science-oriented, and welcome all to join, with walk registration often required but check with each orgs websites, birders are welcomed with whatever levels of experience, and these are orgs that benefit the interests of the conservation and understanding of our birds, with education also a high priority. Blue-headed Vireos were also a new arrival to the county, with a few seen by many of these groups and also by individual birders and photographers in Central Park on Wed., 9-11. Other vireo species included many Red-eyed, as well as some Warbling and also Yellow-throated Vireo, for a tally of at least 5 of the 6 regular-annual vireo species of the region, and for this countys migrations. For fresh arrivals, Central Park also had first-sightings of Ruby-crowned Kinglet and it is likely some other birds will be, or just did first return for fall and ongoing visits. We have numbers of Ruby-crowned and some Golden-crowned Kinglets as well that will eventually try wintering-thru, and with increasing successes in recent years. However we are not nearly to that season yet! Additional species of some interest still moving thru for Wednesday included Common Nighthawk seen at Central Park again, and elsewhere, and many Ruby-throated Hummingbirds still around and also passing in diurnal movements, as well as a lot of flycatchers, with more of E. Wood-Pewees lately. At Bryant Park in midtown Manhattan, the lingering Yellow-breasted Chat continued again with many observers and photographers thru the day, and also present were a number of warblers including Hooded, Mourning, Black-throated Blue and a number of other warbler species, as well as ongoing Lincolns Sparrow and other migrants. Up to 4 species of Catharus type thrush have appeared as well, with Veery, Swainsons, Wood, and Hermit Thrush as recently as Wednesday. Inwood Hill -and other parks of northern Manhattan- also have had some good migration days, with well over 100 species of birds in just that area of Manhattan in recent days. The southern parts of Manhattan also continue to get great migration and we have hundreds of very active observers from all neighborhoods checking dozens of locations each day now in the height of September migrations. On some days, very nice movements of migrating raptors on the move have been seen recently, with multiple vantage points - northern Manhattan can offer some good such areas. - - In the wider county of New York overall, which includes Governors, Randalls, and Roosevelt islands as well as Manhattan island, each of these other isles of this one county have had 15 or more warbler species seen just for Wednesday, thanks to various tireless observers out on the day. Among the many birds moving through, we are finding Bobolinks in all of the islands, and it was good to hear of at least one of those seen in a portion of Randalls island where once somewhat reliable, then less-so - for a while with some habitat-destruction for bits of work - hopefully now to be back to a bit of birding habitat. The Bobolinks of Manhattan can be frisky and often do not linger in place - Governors Island can be one of the more-likely locations to catch up with some at this time of year in N.Y. County, with the Fort Jay tall grass sector sometimes well worth a patient look. Governors was busy with a lot of migrants on 9-11. Randalls Island had Yellow-crowned Night Heron again, a sort of specialty of that site for this county - and certainly also had many, many other birds, including a lot of passerine activity. Vastly more species of birds could be mentioned, and in a future report perhaps more will be. Thanks to all who contribute sightings and photos or other media to the alerts and to eBird with the associated Macaulay Library archive. 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/ --
