Birding in NYC: Central Park

Just this past May, Nick and I had the absolute pleasure of visiting New York City for a friend's wedding, and we, of course, had to bird one of the greatest urban birding spots - Central Park! Our trip started out a *bit* rough. We drove 2 hours north to the Charleston, SC airport to be 2.5 hours early for our flight only to be told 30 minutes before boarding that our flight was cancelled! Another flight to NYC was also cancelled, which left Nick and I scrambling like a scene from a movie trying every airline counter to see if anyone had any way of getting us to NYC that day. Well, that wasn't going to happen. The only flight that may have gotten us there would have us land around 11pm. So what does this pair of crazies do? We decide to drive up to the Big Apple since we would end up there at the same time, while avoiding having to pay for a whole new ticket, and going for one heck of a long road trip. Life's always an adventure with us two! 

Central Park Scenery

William Shakespeare Statue in Central Park

So when we finally get to the city, we waste no time in getting up early, getting a hearty breakfast at the famous Carnegie Deli, and trekking out to Central Park. The weather was not ideal - it was very gray and cloudy, and did end up raining later that day. But we made the most of it and hit up the Ramble, an area in Central Park well known for great birding. It did take us a while to make our way to the Ramble as we kept getting distracted by any flitting we saw. This wasn't our first time to the City, but it was our first time there together as birders, and we didn't want to miss any county, state, or life birds!

Cool Fungus

Pretty White flowers

The Ramble did not disappoint! We were charmed by the sweet songs and great, long looks at our lifer Warbling Vireo. He was quite the performer and delighted us for a good while. Nearby our avian crooner was a Baltimore Oriole that went back and forth from a nest that kept it well-hidden once it was in there.

Warbling Vireo

Warbling Vireo singing

Notice the black crown of the Baltimore Oriole poking out at the top of its nest

Oh, and the Warblers! Definitely most birders' favorite birds to search for, these little beauties were so bright and bold in their breeding plumage - something we almost never saw while living in South Florida, and something that's still pretty uncommon for us to see in Savannah. The Yellow Warblers were so yellow, the Blackpoll Warblers had such bold black caps and streaks, and the Chestnut-Sided Warblers just screamed with beauty with their yellow caps, black war paint on their faces, and just good ole chestnutty goodness.

Female Blackpoll Warbler (the males didn't want to pose)

Another look at a Female Blackpoll Warbler

Female Common Yellowthroat

A not-so great pic of a Chestnut-sided Warbler, but you can tell how handsome he is

Another look at this handsome Chestnut-sided Warbler

Even the birds that we've seen down in the Southeast seemed even lovelier up there. The Cardinals were redder. The Gadwalls were in close proximity to allow for better looks. And we even had amazing look at Cedar Waxwings, which had been all over Savannah for all spring and in early summer. We actually had a very intimate look at what seemed to be a little courtship ritual between a pair of waxwings. One of them collected a small, juicy berry and passed it to the other. Then they proceeded to pass the berry back and forth to each other a few more times before one of them ate it. It was very sweet and endearing and a behavior that we hadn't witnessed before. I could just hear them speaking to each other in French accents, "Here you go, mon cheri. A sweet berry for my sweet berry. Oh no, mon amour. Please, I insist you take it."

Back...

And forth...

And Back.

Over the several days of our trip, we made it to Central Park as much as possible and enjoyed so many lovely birds and all of the spring flowers, and even the dark morph of the gray squirrel which I have only seen in the Northeast. We only wished that we could have stayed longer on our last day to enjoy the sunshine that had finally decided to make an appearance. But alas, we had to make the 14 hour drive back home. One of our mornings we did spend in the famous Jamaica Bay, but that'll have to wait for another post!

 

December Bird Survey for Daggerwing

Maureen and I were all ready to lead a bird walk at Daggerwing Nature Center this weekend, but, unfortunately, nobody was willing to brave the cold (for south Florida) morning to join us. We tried not to take it personally and soldiered onwards to conduct our monthly bird survey of the nature center. 

Right at the start of the boardwalk was our first county Baltimore Oriole, perched near the top of a myrtle, while the Myrtle Warblers flitted about in every direction. The oriole flew after only a few seconds, and headed right out of the park, in the opposite direction from where we were going. 

We only had the occasional Palm Warbler, but plenty of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers buzzed at us as we passed by. There was also a male Common Yellowthroat down in the reeds off the boardwalk, and a Yellow-throated Warbler hiding in a cabbage palm. A single Pine Warbler surveyed the marsh area from a snag. 

We saw a number of raptors, including American Kestrel and several Osprey, and a Red-shouldered Hawk flew overhead a couple of times. We also had a Merlin perched on a snag at the edge of the wetland, but we didn't get the same show that we got last time we saw one. 

There was a good variety of butterflies, including Zebra Longwing, Red Admiral, White Peacock, and Viceroy. It's been a while since we've seen any Ruddy Daggerwings, so it's likely that we've seen the last of them for the year. 

There were also a surprising number of Venusta Orchard Spiders (Leucauge venusta) at about railing-level with the boardwalk. 

On our way out to survey the front of the nature center, we found an active Downy Woodpecker, doing his acrobatics just a few feet off the ground. Here he is showing off the barring on his outer tail feathers.

Overall, we would have preferred if a group had turned out to stroll the boardwalk with us, but it turned out to be a lovely morning, regardless!

Search for the Blue-winged Warbler

Although we'd planned on staying local today, we read reports yesterday of a Blue-winged Warbler sighted at A.D. Barnes Park in Miami. We'd first visited A.D. Barnes just a couple of weeks ago after reports of some Veeries, a Cerulean Warbler, and a Prothonotary Warbler. We managed to find the Prothonotary, but didn't have any luck with the others. Even so, this park immediately became our favorite migrant hot-spot, and well-worth the hour drive each way. 

Prothonotary Warbler from our previous trip

We parked at the nature center at about 7:30. Last time we found this area teeming with Red-eyed Vireos, as we did again this morning. Once we gave up on finding anything else of note there, we walked to the end of the nature trail to more open ground covered by large sprawling live oaks. Here we found lots of Black-throated Blue Warblers, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Prairie Warblers, Northern Parulas, and several American Redstarts.

Prairie Warbler

A little farther along, past the park's lake, we found a number adult male and female Cape May Warblers, as well as some 1st winter juveniles, and an Ovenbird. We also had our first male Baltimore Oriole, having had our first female on our first visit, two weeks earlier. As great as all the migrant activity was, we started to get nervous around 9:30 at not having seen the Blue-winged yet. We were due to volunteer at Daggerwing at noon, and still had an hour's drive ahead of us. Even while we enjoyed everything we'd seen, this was the bird that motivated us to come down, and it would have been somewhat disappointing to miss it. This species of warbler doesn't stay here, but is only passing through en route to its wintering grounds in the Caribbean and South America. If we didn't see it today, it was possible we might not see again during our time in Florida. 

Red-eyed Vireo

Black-throated Blue Warbler

male Baltimore Oriole

female Baltimore Oriole

We doubled back the way we'd come, deciding to give the park one more pass before the long drive back. We paused at some picnic tables under a dense canopy and sifted through more Red-eyed Vireos and some of the more common warblers. I caught a glimpse of yellow on the underside of a bird, and was almost ready to pass it up as another parula, but following it long enough for it to come out from behind some leaves, I was able to make out the black eye stripe just before it flew to the next tree. I pointed it out to Maureen and she confirmed the ID - we were looking at the elusive Blue-winged Warbler. We followed it for as long as we could, and then trekked back to the car feeling a bit more proud of ourselves than we might otherwise have.

Success! Blue-winged Warbler