An American Tree Sparrow was eating grass seed along the fence just north of the Tupelo Tree in the Tupelo Meadow of Central Park on Monday afternoon. It’s a plump, long tailed sparrow with a black dot in the center of its chest and a bicolored beak. It took some patience to watch and photograph it as it weaved its way through the thick grass and leaves. It was hidden much more than visible.
A Red-breasted Merganser has arrived on the Central Park Reservoir and with some patience you could find it. Depending on when you looked, it could be easy to photograph, under water or in the worst possible place to view it or photograph it. I lucked out at the end of the day, when it when up on the reservoir’s divider and stayed close to the south gatehouse for 30 minutes.
The oval windows of the Beresford Apartments towers were a favorite spot for Lola and Pale Male to perch on in the winter. Lola and Pale Male would either be together or they would be in separate windows, one on the Southeast tower and one on the Northeast tower.
Today, as I saw the pair from the San Remo perched on the Beresford together, it brought back memories of a pair of hawks, I spend years getting to know.
The Bald Eagle seems to have switched the times of its visits to the Reservoir to earlier in the day to be somewhere between 12:15 and 1:30. I caught up with it early this afternoon, when it was raining lightly.
It took off towards the northwest, flying fairly low. It wasn’t clear if it was off to perch in a tree along the west drive or was leaving the park and flying towards the Hudson.
While the eagle ends up clearing the Reservoir of all the gulls, it doesn’t not seem to be hunting gulls or fish. It simply is wading in the water and drinking.
Late in the afternoon, a Bald Eagle visited Central Park’s Reservoir today. It stayed for at least 30 minutes. It took a few drinks of water and a few American Crows kept an eye on it. When it left it exited the park, it appeared to go west down 96th Street.
The earlier Bald Eagle visits this fall, seemed to be correlated with the warmer days, but today was in the 60’s. I’m happy to have my theory about the eagle visits only being on warm days disproven, as I’d like to see the eagle continue to visit as it gets colder in the late fall and winter.
Late this afternoon a Great Blue Heron was fishing on Turtle Pond. It had a great hit rate. I would say eight out of ten tries.
