There has been a Harbor Seal to the north and south of the Boat Basin (79th and the Hudson River) for the last few months. I got to see the seal on Saturday. Too bad. If it was on Sunday, I could have made bad puns about the Easter Seal.
Thanks to Leslie Day, for the heads up.
While looking for owls on Thursday, I found these three baby raccoons. Their tree had been trimmed after a branch had fallen. There mother was inspecting the changes and these three went exploring around their cavity.
I birded in the North Wood on Saturday and enjoyed the second wave of the fall migration, which as brought new ducks, woodpeckers, fly catchers and thrushes. I also stumbled into the Monarch Butterfly migration, where at least 500 Monarchs were taking a break in the Wildflower Meadow.
Central Park’s celebrity Red Squirrel was busy collecting nuts and chasing Gray Squirrels on Saturday.
I had heard stories of very large turtles in Central Park, but since I’d never seen one thought they were a myth. These stories included one about a 75 pound turtle being moved from Turtle Pond to the Lake in 1997, and various tales of ducklings being eaten by large turtles. These stories always seemed as plausible as the Loch Ness monster being real!
But they must be true, or at least partially. On Sunday, I saw the largest fresh water turtle I’ve ever seen. It was huge! It was between 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 feet and slowly moved about a cove in the Lake called the Oven.
I hope it gets looked after during the Lake’s renovation. Maybe it can go back to Turtle Pond, although I suspect we’d have fewer goslings and ducklings reaching adulthood.
I went birding on Sunday in hopes of finding the St. John the Divine hawks or the 1st Year Red-tailed hawk, Ben Cacace and Lincoln Karim have been seeing in Central Park. I didn’t find either of them.
I did see some old favorites however, the Red Squirrel (the only one in Central Park), Lola, the female Red-tailed Hawk from the 5th Avenue nest, who was on the NE tower of the Beresford keeping an eye on a Kestrel pair on the SE tower, and the two young Green Herons.
