Thanks to a report from Alice Deutsch this morning, I saw the American Woodcock in Union Square this afternoon.
The woodcock rested in some ivy for about 90 minutes before being harassed by a Brown Rat. Eventually, it needed to fly from a fairly protected area to a fenced off plaza. Luckily, it was dark enough that the local Cooper’s Hawk didn’t see it.
I had a wonderful year birding in New York County this year. I ended up with 180 species.
Thank you to the Discord Manhattan-RBA and Manhattan-Chat admins, GroupMe Manhattan *RARE* Bird Alert and Manhattan Common Bird Alert admins, and the eBird reviewers for the county.
Thanks also go to my fellow birders, who reported birds, answered questions, etc. I learned a lot this year from so many different people.
I recently found out I could summarize in one PDF all of the images I had submitted to eBird, which are usually pictures needed to support a rare bird sighting. It’s a great collection of images that shows the rich diversity of avian life. You can view it my clicking on the image below. Clicking on any of the images will bring up information about the bird and the image on eBird.
Thank again and Happy New Year,
Bruce
This week Horned Larks have been on both Randall’s Island and Governors Island. Today, I caught up with the ones on Governors Island. They were eating grass seeds on the ballfields.
Four Horned Larks have stuck around Randalls Island out of two larger groups that had been seen both on Randall’s Island and Governors Island a few days earlier.
It had snowed and they were eating grass seeds in the bare patches of the snow along the eastern edge of the ballfields in the northeast end of the island. They were a bit skittish, and I got my best pictures digiscoping and staying 100 feet from them.
A Dickcissel that was first seen in a birder’s backyard on a BirdCam feeder Harlem and now in Riverside Park was very cooperative today. It was on the ground and sometimes on a small bird feeder about 50 feet south of the Tennis Center bathrooms.
It was a great bird to watch on a cold fall day. The winds from the Hudson made it even colder!
I carried my heavy camera equipment with me on Sunday, hoping the owl would be in the same perch but came up empty. So, I switched back to my light weight gear on Monday and then Tuesday. The owl was back in its Friday and Saturday perch on Tuesday but I found out too late to bring my better equipment!
However, I was able to get some decent pictures with my scope and iPhone.
Unlike Saturday, were it when to a high perch after fly out, which is what I’m used to with a Great Horned Owl, tonight this owl seemed to be interested in the rodents that it had been seeing from its perch. It flew out to two different branches about 25 feet off the ground and carefully looked at the ground. It flew off after about 40 minutes, and didn’t hunt in front of us, but we had extended views and enjoyed the experience!
