Over the past two weeks, I’ve been unable to make it into the park after work before it gets dark, and certainly won’t be able to now that we’re on standard time.  So, I wanted everyone to know that this blog is only going to have weekend updates until late winter.

Other than it getting dark so early, late fall is an interesting time in the park.  The fall migration is ending, but there are still plenty of things to discover including interesting waterfowl and raptors.

A pair of swans are on the Lake, lots of uncommon Central Park birds are on the Reservoir including a Pied-billed Grebe, Wood Duck, Ring-necked Duck and Hooded Mergansers.  Raptors continue to migrate south over the park with sightings of Osprey, Cooper’s Hawks, Eagles and Turkey Vultures.

The leaves have turned to wonderful colors over the past few weeks.  If you have a chance, take a walk in the park before it’s too late.

Below are pictures of a Pied-billed Grebe from Saturday on the Reservoir.

The Blue Grosbeak I photographed on Sunday, had a set of “whiskers” over the inner portion of its beak.  My first guess was that the function of these “whiskers” was that they help the bird position seeds in its beak while husking them.

I’ve done a number of searches on the Internet, to try and learn the scientific name and purpose of these “whiskers” without finding any information.  If you know of a source of information about this anatomical feature, please leave a comment.

A Blue Grosbeak was discovered on Saturday in the Wildflower Meadow.  I was fortunate to see it and photograph it on Sunday afternoon.

It spend the afternoon eating seed after seed, which it carefully opened with its beak.  It flipped its tail quite frequently and called quite often.   It seemed to enjoying the bounty of the Wildflower Meadow.

Central Park has great resources to share information about sightings including NYC Bird Report and a Yahoo! group, ebirdsnyc.  Today both sources had news of a Yellow-breasted Chat in the Maintenance Field.

I got to the park as the sun was setting, so my pictures are a little grainy.  The Yellow-breasted Chat was a new bird for my Central Park list.

While birding in the Wildflower Meadow, I saw a new bird for my Central Park list, a Great Crested Flycatcher.  It had just caught a dragonfly.