A Red-breasted Merganser has arrived on the Central Park Reservoir and with some patience you could find it. Depending on when you looked, it could be easy to photograph, under water or in the worst possible place to view it or photograph it. I lucked out at the end of the day, when it when up on the reservoir’s divider and stayed close to the south gatehouse for 30 minutes.

Late this afternoon a Great Blue Heron was fishing on Turtle Pond. It had a great hit rate. I would say eight out of ten tries.

Thanks to the good eyes and I.D. skills of fellow birders, I was able to photograph an Orange-crowned Warbler at dusk this evening at the Turtle Pond Dock. It was just west of the blind.

Turtle Pond had an American Wigeon on Saturday.

The wigeon was found by Chuck McAlexander’s Saturday Slow Birding walk group. As fall migration winds down, rare waterfowl are often found on the lakes and ponds of Central Park, as they make their way further south.

Sparrow Rock has had an Indigo Bunting for a few days. It’s been eating grass seeds. Seed eating bird have beaks that let them separate the husk from the kernel. Watching this bunting, strip of grass seeds, and then husk the seeds, has been fairly easy. It has often been eating seeds within fifteen feet of observers.

A Nelson’s Sparrow was found up at the Pool of Central Park on Saturday. It’s a bird I’m used to having other trek out to the Bronx Kill on Randalls Island to see, so it was nice to have one closer to home.