American Woodcocks have been in Central Park for about the last week. I caught up with one on Saturday. They’re very well camouflaged, worm eating birds with a silly walk and mating ritual.
The bird was doing a good job of hiding, but we did get some glimpses!
With the snow and ice, I only stayed in the center of Central Park today. I added two species to my year list, a Fox Sparrow and a Rusty Blackbird. Highlights also included a very tame Carolina Wren and a Long-eared Owl.
I love birding Randall’s Island (a small island East of Manhattan, south of the Bronx, and west of Queens) in the winter. I generally don’t see another birder when I visit, but today because of a Barnacle Goose found by Anya Auerbach, there were lots of birders. I also had two Snow Buntings by the water’s edge east of Field 31. Both species were life birds for me, so today was a great day. New York City has lots of great birds in January!
For some reason, Horned Larks are a species that has escaped my view until today. A flock was on one of runways at Floyd Bennett Field this afternoon.
My New Year’s resolution is to do a little more birding and a little less photography during the non-nesting/fledgling period for hawks. (Basically the months outside of April, May, June and July.)
So today, I just went for a long walk around Central Park today with my scope and took an occasional digiscoping picture. My bird count 39 species. The highlight was seeing two Baltimore Orioles.
| Count | Species | |
| 81 | Canada Goose | |
| 2 | Wood Duck | |
| 41 | Mallard | |
| 1 | American Black Duck x Mallard (hybrid) | |
| 37 | Northern Shoveler | |
| 1 | Ring-necked Duck | |
| 8 | Bufflehead | |
| 9 | Hooded Merganser | |
| 10 | Ruddy Duck | |
| 4 | Pied-billed Grebe | |
| 1 | Sharp-shinned Hawk | |
| 1 | Cooper’s Hawk | |
| 3 | Red-tailed Hawk | |
| 5 | American Coot | |
| 18 | Ring-billed Gull | |
| 6 | Great Black-backed Gull | |
| 23 | Rock Pigeon | |
| 1 | Mourning Dove | |
| 1 | Red-bellied Woodpecker | |
| 2 | Downy Woodpecker | |
| 1 | Hairy Woodpecker | |
| 11 | Blue Jay | |
| 1 | American Crow | |
| 2 | Black-capped Chickadee | |
| 2 | White-breasted Nuthatch | |
| 1 | Brown Creeper | |
| 1 | Carolina Wren | |
| 2 | American Robin | |
| 1 | Northern Mockingbird | |
| 4 | European Starling | |
| 1 | Song Sparrow | |
| 28 | White-throated Sparrow | |
| 8 | Dark-eyed Junco | |
| 2 | Northern Cardinal | |
| 1 | Red-winged Blackbird | |
| 6 |
Common Grackle | |
| 2 | Baltimore Oriole | |
| 11 | House Finch | |
| 8 | American Goldfinch | |
| 23 | House Sparrow |
I went down to Battery Park to see if I could find the banded hawk NJ30, which had been seen and photographed by other hawk watchers earlier in the month.
I didn’t find anything at first but after about half an hour, I saw a number of pigeons and gulls fly. It was a hawk alright, but not the Red-tailed Hawk NJ30. Instead it was a Cooper’s Hawk by the Coast Guard building.
Manhattan’s reliable female Wild Turkey was also in her usual spot. (She’s not so wild anymore. I think she’s being feed regularly.)
