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.
The San Remo pair have been spending a great deal of time on the towers of the Beresford Apartments at 81st and Central Park West this fall. The female has been using a window, I don’t normally see her in. The oval “window”, which is actually bricked on this side, on the north face of the north tower. This is a perch, in past years I failed to monitor. She has also been perching on a ledge on the northeast corner of the tower. So, it’s worth keeping an eye on this side of the tower, if you’re at Sparrow Rock or coming south from the reservoir on the west side.
On Halloween evening, there was a Great Horned Owl in Central Park in a tree just east of the bridle path between the Locust Grove and Sparrow Rock. I didn’t arrive until just before fly out. It was a joy to watch this owl which was only seen for one day.
It flew out to a nearby pine, and then to a tall tree along the West Drive but quickly disappeared into the night.
On the roof of the open building to the west of Belvedere Castle in Central Park was a Merlin late in the afternoon today. It was seen earlier in the week in the same spot, and has also been seen hunting on around the Great Lawn. It stayed perched for over half an hour.
I was walking with a fellow birder to Central Park’s Reservoir, and we saw about 50 gulls in the air moving west. I said, “something must have spooked the reservoir gulls”. When we got to the SW corner of the reservoir, this was understatement. Two Bald Eagles were sitting along the divider of the reservoir which is currently covered by only an inch or two of water. in 2022, we had daily visits by Rover when we had ice, and I’ve seen single eagles before on the divider was fully exposed, but I’ve never seen two Bald Eagles on the Reservoir, nor have I seen them wading in the water.
They were both far away from me, and I had to use my scope to take most of the pictures, so the highlights are washed out in most of my photographs. But it was a thrill to see both eagles. One left about a half hour before the other. The one that stayed the longest was banded, but I only saw the bands when the bird flew off, so I couldn’t read them.
On Thursday afternoon, The Linnaean Society of New York hosted a hawk watch on the steps near Belvedere Castle. While it was a bit too late in the season to get Broad-winged Hawks, we had lots of raptors, Turkey Vultures, Canada Geese, and one Bald Eagle.
A local American Kestrel showed up on a tree on the opposite side of Turtle Pond and eventually perched on an antenna on Fifth Avenue.
