On Monday and Tuesday nights I watched Chimney Swifts enter the 230 Central Park West chimney. On Monday, it was from a roof on Columbus Avenue and on Tuesday, it was from Central Park. It was reported that this location had over 3,000 swifts roost here last week!

I counted 307 going to roost on Monday and 204 on Tuesday. Historically, this is when you would expect the swifts to be leaving the area and going further south, so this makes sense.

By accident on Tuesday morning, I found a spot (40.7831450, -73.9676067) where you could watch the chimney. Much to my surprise about 30 swifts left the roost around 10 am, confirming it was the correct one. I suspect with the cold weather, they were in no rush to leave their roost!

Two rare birds for Central Park were within 100 yards of each other on the north side of Turtle Pond on Friday. A Sora, a small rail, was skulking along the NE shore, but at times giving wonderful views, and a Grasshopper Sparrow on the north lawn that was busy eating seeds in the lawn.

A juvenile Red-headed Woodpecker was among the Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers in Central Park’s Pinetum today. Hopefully, it will find some nice acorns and stick around for the winter.

Tonight the numbers were higher for the Chimney Swifts at 944 Fifth Avenue. About 370 went to roost in about four minutes with them assembling about 8 minutes before hand. This is much quicker than last week.

I’m not sure how to reconcile the numbers with last nights count in the rain. Did swifts leave in the northerly winds, to be replaced with more migrants this evening? I have no idea. But I’m glad that we’re still seeing good numbers of swifts roosting on 5th Avenue.

The numbers were way down tonight. The rain also seemed to have changed their behavior. Rather than circling for an extended period, they seemed eager to go to roost. It was raining so I couldn’t record them like I would have liked. I suspect the number of swifts was around 160 tonight.

Once the weather is better it will be interesting to see if the numbers go back up, or if with our northerly winds, the Chimney Swifts have migrated south. Last year, we had good numbers until the third week of October.

New York City weather has been relentless rain with strong northeasterly winds over the last few days. Gray has been the dominant color!

However, it did bring in some interesting birds. On Governor’s Island at least five Forster’s Terns were seen in Buttermilk Channel. When I arrived they were mostly around the Lima Pier, fishing in the somewhat sheltered cove the pier makes.

Thank you to Mary Beth Kooper who sent out a Group Me alert.