The Pond in the southeastern corner of Central Park had a Green Heron on Sunday.  It was fishing for minnows when I found it on the far shore of the southwest corner of the pond.  Fall migration has begun slowly in the park.  Number are still very low, but we’re getting interesting birds.  The highlights of the day for me were a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Canada Warbler, two Northern Waterthrushs, American Redstart, Belted Kingfisher, Great Egret and Baltimore Oriole.

These photos were taken on two days over the last week.  The Governors Island Common Tern colony is doing well, with many of the chicks getting quite large.  With so many youngsters running around, it’s amazing the parents find their own offspring to feed.  But they seem to figure it out without a problem.

On the eastern wall of the western most pump house on the north side of the Central Park Reservoir is a Barn Swallow nest.  There are four young.  It’s a nice nest to watch, since it is fairly exposed.

This year has been disappointing for Red-tailed Hawks in southern Manhattan.  Although it most likely fledged, I can’t find the fledgling from the West End Avenue/72nd Street Nest.  This leaves us only with a few fledglings to watch above 110th Street.

Since it’s a hike to see the fledglings uptown, I’ve been spending time this last few weeks looking at other species that nest in the city.  There are lots of youngsters around.  These pictures are of and Eastern Kingbird family who were near the pier at Turtle Pond.  The snack was a dragonfly.

The Common Terns nesting on Governor’s Island have lots of chicks running around now.  Some big and some little, they are running all around the north end of Lima Pier.

The first adult tern in the video appears has a VHF NanoTag tracker.  While this season’s nano tags haven’t shown up in the Motus database, you can see the data from NYC Audubon’s 2016-2019 Semipalmated Sandpiper tags on the site.  Click on a tag with activity and then select “Show detections in: a map”.  While due to limitation in receiver station coverage you don’t get a full picture of the bird’s movement, you do see birds movements to the Canadian Maritimes, the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, New England, and South America. You can see an animation of all the tag movements here. Select the play icon to start the animation. Great work by Ariel Lenske, Kaitlyn Parkins, and Susan Elbin.

The Yellow-crowned Night-Heron nest at Governors Island continues to delight me each time I visit.  On Tuesday, I arrived just in time to see an exchange between the parents, with the male being replaced by the female, who regurgitated food for the nestlings.  I usually can’t see what’s been delivered but today, one youngster got hold of a huge piece of crab.  It took a bit of effort to position it so it could be swallowed, while also preventing it from being stolen by a sibling.

A nearby Fish Crow nest has begun to fledge, with one of the first fledglings on a windowsill below the Yellow-crowned Night-Heron nest.  Another young Fish Crow was branching in the nest tree.