Birding Blog

The tale of the yellow-throated warbler in Central Park.

We arrived in Central Park about 3:00pm on Friday searching for one of the many reported yellow-throated warblers. The one that seemed most promising and nearby was the bird on 59th street. So, Sandy, Susan and I began our search. It was last seen on the bridge and we immediately went to that location to try and find it. Sadly, we did not but we did find many other spring migrants. Blue gray gnatcatcher gave us glorious looks, two wayward field sparrows were grazing at just a few feet away. Kinglets everywhere, and a few warblers. After 3 hours we gave up and were sitting on a bench in the Hallet looking for nearby birds when my phone rang....

2 Comments

Seaside Sparrows of Clinton

6/17/2016

0 Comments

, When I heard there were 1, 2, 3-maybe 4 seaside sparrows on the west side of Manhattan, I thought, really? But the teenage birder who posted the sighting was quite reliable, so I decided to go get the birds. As an east sider, I am not too familiar with the west side of Manhattan-especially midtown west with its vacant lots, car dealerships, and construction sites. The streets between 10th and 12th avenues are lonely, vacant and long. I started my excursion by taking the crosstown bus at 23rd street and ended up at Chelsea Piers. There I searched for a bus going uptown to 55th street where the park is located. I asked a few passing strangers who looked at me and kept walking and then approached a large group of teenagers who viewed me as “stranger danger.” Well, it was raining and my hair was wet and frizzy. And I had on a long black rain coat with my camera with its 400 mm lenses tucked under my arm. I guess, the camera could have conjured up images to those with vivid imaginations. The homeless people in Chelsea Piers were beginning to watch me, too closely, as I wandered the area - so I thought it best to hop a cab uptown. When I arrived at 55th Street I saw Central Park birder, Martin who waved for me to come to the bicycle path. There I spied the three bedraggled sparrows, one with feathers wet and sticking out, one with a missing foot and the other in somewhat decent shape. They were feeding, non-stop, on the fallen seeds of the trees. One could only imagine their perilous migratory journey to arrive on Manhattan’s west side. Migration is not for sissies. And these three warriors were now on the island of Manhattan where everyone struggles for survival. Hey, they were home and now truly New Yorkers. They were fearless feeding out in the open while bikes and people passed just hopping out of the way in the nick of time. It seems that their only fixation were the seeds. They must have been starving. As the afternoon grew dimmer and drearier more birders arrived with cameras and video and looks of awe and amazement that only birders can understand. We are a special breed and we “get it” when a bird or birds come down that are not so common in the area. We share that special love of nature and avian creatures. You could just look at our faces and see how happy we all were silently watching these three warriors peck and hop. Lulled by the lapping waves of the Hudson River, the green grass of the park and the company of each other we enjoyed the solitude within our souls, as we practiced our craft of birding.

All of a sudden a flash of orange slid between us and and the bicycle path and a loud ka-ka-ka-ka filled the air. We all turned in horror to watch an American Kestrel, which is a small brightly colored hawk, grab one of the sparrows in its talons and fly victoriously away -its hapless prey dangling like a rag doll upside down. An audible gasp was heard from the birders, a gasp that filled this gray, damp day with sorrow and sadness. In the short time I watched these three little sparrows I was amazed at their perseverance, their fortitude and dignity at having traveled so far to end up in a concrete jungle, which could have been their paradise. It gave pause to the moment and perhaps I identified too much with these three little birds, but I thought what a metaphor for life. I looked about at this pocket park on the west side with its lush green lawns, beautiful trees and the untamable Hudson River and I sighed. I decided to pack it in and go home, trudging up the avenues searching for a bus stop, a little sadder than when I arrived, leaving the wild and unpredictable west side behind me.

0 Comments