On a rainy Tuesday morning on a bird walk in Central Park yesterday, our group was rewarded with this wonderful Marsh Wren along The Lake.

Tonight almost seemed like a bust.  There were a few bats at the Model Boat Pond, but no swifts in sight.  However, after sunset the swifts slowly began to appear above the roost and for about 5 minutes swarmed above it.  Then it was off to roost for the night.

It will be interesting to see when they leave the city.

While watching Eastern Red Bats and Big Brown Bats on Thursday, I ran into a bird watcher studying Chimney Swifts that roost at 944 Fifth Avenue at 75th.  It turns out the best place to watch them is the “hawk bench” where “regulars” watch Pale Male’s nest in the spring.

The swifts swarm around the roost and then around 6:30 into the video they start to enter the roost.  In a few minutes, they are almost all inside.  Thank goodness for pre-war buildings.

Early on Saturday, Ben Cacace found a Swainson’s Hawk on Governors Island.  While the chances of others finding it was slim, it was such a rare bird for Manhattan, lots of very good birders made a trip to the island.  As is bound to happen with so many good birders on the island, Loyan Beausoleil found a Western Kingbird about 150 feet west of Tango Pier, a life bird for me.

A Black-throated Green Warbler was in a Cypress Tree near the Turtle Pond dock.  It was very active eating insects.

At Turtle Pond, a Belted Kingfisher made a meal of a nice sized fish this afternoon.  It took a bit of work to kill it but then it was quickly down the hatch.