Mokka mit Schlag » Birding

#506 AND #507 Winter Wren

Elliotte Rusty Harold — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 09:46:56 +0000

Surely I’ve seen a Winter Wren before now? Well, yes I have. Many times and on more than one continent. However, the American Ornithological Union has just split the species into 3, Pacific Wren (Troglodytes pacificus) in the Pacific Northwest, Winter Wren (Troglodytes hyemalis), back here in New York, and Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes) in Eurasia. In fact, I’ve seen all three, Troglodytes hyemalis from New York and other locations, Troglodytes pacificus in the Bay Area in California, and Troglodytes troglodytes from Europe. I’m not sure which I saw first, Eastern or European. It may actually have been the European species back when I first started getting serious about this.

#505 Hudsonian Godwit

Elliotte Rusty Harold — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:55:02 +0000

Sunday morning Janet Schumacher and I drove out to Cupsogue Beach County Park on the south shore of Long Island to look for the Hudsonian Godwit that had been reported there since the previous weekend. I first saw it at low tide around 9:15 AM on the first sandbar in the bay, visible from just past the trailer parking area. However the bill looked a little off and I wasn’t sure before the bird took off. Could have been a Dowitcher in intermediate plumage. Then, after walking a mile out to the point and back again, we relocated it at exactly the same spot and got much better looks at it, including a few (bad) photographs.

At least I hope that’s the bird. (Lower right foreground) It was easier to see through the scope which gives you much several times more magnification than my 400mm lens (roughly equivalent to a pair of binoculars). To get this much I had to scan along the sandbar snapping away and then blow up the photos later at home.

If anyone wants to try for it:

Check the tide tables. Aim for low tide.
Drive to the far west end of the parking lot.
From there, walk down the unpaved sand road till just past the trailer camp.
Scope the sandbar in the middle of the bay (right hand side of the road) until you spot a Dowitcher sized bird with a noticeably ruddy breast.

Also, if it’s a weekend get there early. Although there were few folks around when we arrived, by the time we left at 11:30 the parking lot was completely full, and the police were turning away a long line of cars.

The bird may be associating with some Dowitchers, or it may just be a coincidence. At one point we saw the Dowitchers appear to get annoyed with the Godwit and chase it off. However the color and patterns are clearly distinct from the Dowitchers. I would have been less confident in the ID if we hadn’t had both species standing right there for easy comparison. By itself, the Godwit is easy to mistake for a Dowitcher at this distance. interestingly, we could see that the feeding pattern was also distinct. The Dowitchers probe the mud much faster than the Godwit does.

Other birds seen included:

Double-crested Cormorant
Great Egret
Osprey
Black-bellied Plover
American Oystercatcher
Spotted Sandpiper
Greater Yellowlegs
Willet
Hudsonian Godwit
Ruddy Turnstone
Red Knot
Sanderling
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Least Tern
Common Tern
Forster’s Tern
Tree Swallow
Barn Swallow
Northern Mockingbird
Song Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird
House Finch
House Sparrow

#504 Kentucky Warbler

Elliotte Rusty Harold — Sat, 22 May 2010 22:53:21 +0000

Today I slept in and went down to Prospect Park around 8:30 AM where I promptly ran into Tom Stephenson who informed me that Rafael Campos had found a Kentucky Warbler in the Vale of Cashmere. We hurried down to the Vale just in time to see it fly across the grassy path leading out to Nellie’s lawn. Unfortunately, all we really saw was a small brown bird fly very fast across in front of us. There was no way to ID it. However after a few minutes of waiting it was spotted again, and I got one good look at it. I saw it for less than a second, and I didn’t get a photograph, but it’s distinctive enough that there really wasn’t any doubt. It looks a lot like the Common Yellowthroat except instead of a black mask it has a slightly more patterned brown mask. The Kentucky Warbler is a Southern bird that usually doesn’t get as far north as New York City, but every year a few birds overshoot their marks and end up in Central Park or Prospect Park or Forest Park and similar environs.

The only other regular bird left for me to find in the city is the Mourning Warbler. Of course you can always hope for something rare to show up, though that’s more likely in the wintertime.

Other than the Kentucky Warbler, Prospect Park was relatively quiet this morning, especially compared to the Bird Fest last weekend. I only saw five total species of Warbler and a few over 40 birds:

Canada Goose
Mute Swan
Mallard
Double-crested Cormorant
Green Heron
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Spotted Sandpiper
Ring-billed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Olive-sided Flycatcher
Empidonax sp.
Eastern Kingbird
Warbling Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Barn Swallow
Tufted Titmouse
Carolina Wren
House Wren
Swainson’s Thrush
Wood Thrush
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Cedar Waxwing
Northern Parula
Magnolia Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Blackpoll Warbler
Kentucky Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Song Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Baltimore Oriole
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow

Also of note, I also saw my first Green Heron and my first Black-crowned Night-Heron this season. these aren’t especially uncommon birds. I just haven’t had a lot of time to go out into the parks this year.

Come Birding with Me

Elliotte Rusty Harold — Fri, 14 May 2010 11:23:13 +0000

Tomorrow, Saturday, May 15 I will be leading a Brooklyn Bird Club field trip to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. We’ll Start outside the Eastern Parkway entrance at 9:20 AM, just down the street from the Brooklyn Museum stop on the 2/3. Spring migration is in full swing so I’m hopeful that we will have many interesting warblers, thrushes, tanagers, and other uncommon species. As bird club trips go, this is a fairly relaxed one. We start late and finish early, so it’s a really nice walk for beginners or folks just dipping their toe into the water for the first time. Bring binoculars. Hope to see you there.

Common Grackle at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2010-05-06

Happy International Migratory Bird Day!

Elliotte Rusty Harold — Sat, 08 May 2010 18:08:51 +0000

Scarlet Tanager, Piranga olivacea, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2010-05-08

#503 Puerto Rican Bullfinch

Elliotte Rusty Harold — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 23:33:34 +0000

Only one life bird today, the endemic Puerto Rican Bullfinch. I saw it only very briefly; but it’s very distinctive and easily identified: a jet black bird with big orange on its head and throat. I saw this on the Ballenas Trail in the Bosque del Seco. Unfortunately, I did not get a photo of this one, so how about a much better photo of a Puerto Rican Tody instead?

Only one life bird in a day. Must be time to go home. After one week my Puerto Rican list (which is identical to my Caribbean list) stands at 59 species:

West Indian Whistling-Duck
Blue-winged Teal
White-cheeked Pintail
Ruddy Duck
Brown Pelican
Magnificent Frigatebird
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Little Blue Heron
Tricolored Heron
Cattle Egret
Green Heron
Glossy Ibis
Turkey Vulture
American Kestrel
Common Moorhen
Caribbean Coot
Black-bellied Plover
Wilson’s Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Killdeer
Black-necked Stilt
Spotted Sandpiper
Willet
Lesser Yellowlegs
Ruddy Turnstone
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Laughing Gull
Royal Tern
Sandwich Tern
Rock Pigeon
White-winged Dove
Zenaida Dove
Common Ground-Dove
Monk Parakeet
Puerto Rican Lizard-Cuckoo
Smooth-billed Ani
Antillean Nighthawk
Antillean Mango
Puerto Rican Tody
Puerto Rican Woodpecker
Caribbean Elaenia
Gray Kingbird
Caribbean Martin
Red-legged Thrush
Northern Mockingbird
Pearly-eyed Thrasher
Yellow Warbler
Adelaide’s Warbler
Bananaquit
Yellow-faced Grassquit
Black-faced Grassquit
Puerto Rican Bullfinch
Greater Antillean Grackle
Shiny Cowbird
Venezuelan Troupial
House Sparrow
Bronze Mannikin

That’s 25 life birds in a week, not counting the Bronze Mannikin. I finally crossed the 500 mark with Sandwich Terns on Thursday. 500’s actually not that big a number, especially when international destinations are included. It’s more of a milestone for the “ABA area” (i.e. continental U.S., Canada, and Alaska.). Within that region I’m only at about 425 or so.

#498-502 Back at the Copa

Elliotte Rusty Harold — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 21:58:32 +0000

Today we spent most of the day at the hotel (plus one abortive, rained out trip to the allegedly dry forest). Early in the morning (6:30-8:30) I spent some time in an undeveloped area just east of the hotel with a lot of mud flats and it was jumping. In fact, I’d say it was the best birding of the trip so far. Across the road from the hotel I finally located a small flock of buzzy little brown jobs I’d been hearing for a couple of days. They weren’t anything I recognized, but after consulting the field guide I decided they were grassquits, but which ones? The female and immature Yellow-faced Grassquits look almost exactly like the immature Black-faced Grassquits. Fortunately I eventually spotted one male Yellow-faced Grassquit (though no photo) which resolved that. Or at least it did until I found two adult male Black-faced Grassquits:

Apparently it was a mixed flock so that’s #498 and #499. At least one of the grassquits was banded, though I couldn’t read the band. I later learned there’s been an active bird banding project in Bosque del Seco for a couple of decades now.

Moving on into the mudflats south of the road and east of the Restaurant San Jacinto, I found a host of shorebirds including Ruddy Turnstone, Black-bellied Plover, Semipalmated Plover, Black-necked Stilt, Spotted sandpiper, Least Sandpiper, Lesser Yellowlegs, and more. I also found my first Yellow Warbler of the trip, and shortly after three smallish terns flew over squawking an unfamiliar call. They had black bills and no obvious dark patches on the wings. Down here that could only be Sandwich Tern, #500. I was hoping I could find and photograph more of these later, but these were the only ones I saw. Terns and gulls were surprisingly uncommon on this trip for the week: just one Laughing Gull, these three Sandwich Terns, and two Royal terns at Caña Gorda the next day.

I continued on into the mudflats when I flushed a bird I hadn’t even thought of trying for because it’s just too damn hard to find: Antillean Nighthawk! #501. And not only did I get great looks as it flew around, it promptly circled back and landed right in front of me:

Wow. These are not easy to find and even harder to photograph. After cooperatively posing for several shots, it took off again. But that wasn’t all. On the way back I spotted an unusually large plover. At first I thought another Semipalmated Plover or maybe a Snow Plover but it was clearly two large and the pattern wasn’t right. Also the bill was too large. What could it be? Fortunately I had just heard about the county first Wilson’s Plover at Bolsa Chica, so I had Wilson’s Plover on the brain; and when I checked the field guide, there it was:

#502. Wilson’s Plover! I’ve missed several easy life birds since I left Irvine last year, so this one felt particularly sweet.

In about two early morning hours I had 26 species including 5 life birds:

Brown Pelican
Magnificent Frigatebird
American Kestrel
Black-bellied Plover
Wilson’s Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Killdeer
Black-necked Stilt
Spotted Sandpiper
Lesser Yellowlegs
Ruddy Turnstone
Least Sandpiper
Sandwich Tern
White-winged Dove
Common Ground-Dove
Antillean Nighthawk
Puerto Rican Woodpecker
Gray Kingbird
Northern Mockingbird
Pearly-eyed Thrasher
Yellow Warbler
Bananaquit
Yellow-faced Grassquit
Black-faced Grassquit
Greater Antillean Grackle
Venezuelan Troupial

#494-497 in Old San Juan

Elliotte Rusty Harold — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 21:32:29 +0000

Today was a break from birding. Instead Beth and I went to visit Viejo San Juan. It reminded me more of the French Quarter than anywhere else I’ve ever seen. Of course I did bring my binoculars, and Beth brought her camera. You never know when something’s going to surprise you in the middle of the city, and Viejo San Juan didn’t disappoint. The first surprise was what I first thought were Tree Swallows, but they were a little off. For one thing, when’s the last time you saw Tree Swallows nesting in the middle of the city? After consulting the field guide I realized we were looking at Caribbean Martins!

After that it was a few Greater Antillean Grackles, a Monk Parakeet or three, and hundreds and hundreds of Rock Pigeons until we reached the western city wall where a Red-legged Thrush dropped down right in front of us:

I’ll try for a better photo Saturday when I’m back in San Juan with my real camera.

Not five minutes later, an Antillean Mango flitted into a tree just north of the Casa Roja. No pictures of that one. Hummingbirds are hard enough to photograph with the DSLR. There’s almost no chance of doing this with the Lumix point-and-shoot.

Finally on the lawn in front of El Morro I spotted the first Mourning Doves of the trip. Or were they? In binoculars they looked a little off. Do Mourning Doves have an iridescent pitch in their neck and brownish tail feathers. No! It’s #497, Zenaida Dove:

Total count for Old San Juan was 14 species including 4 life birds:

Brown Pelican
Magnificent Frigatebird
Rock Pigeon
White-winged Dove
Zenaida Dove
Common Ground-Dove
Monk Parakeet
Antillean Mango
Gray Kingbird
Caribbean Martin
Red-legged Thrush
Northern Mockingbird
Bananaquit
House Sparrow

I was hoping for some gulls and terns in the harbor, but I can’t complain about 4 life birds in the middle of a city, especially when I wasn’t expecting any. 500 is now easily within reach on this trip.

#490-493 at Laguna Cartagena

Elliotte Rusty Harold — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:53:46 +0000

Today Beth and I drove up to Lajas and Laguna Cartagena, allegedly one of the best and least visited birding sites in Puerto Rico. As a large freshwater pond, it supports a lot of species that aren’t easily found elsewhere. It’s a bit hard to find and our directions weren’t great, but we got to the southeast entrance around 9:00 A.M. The area’s overgrown and the first birds we found were Gallus gallus (i.e. chickens) but we also sa a lot of Gray Kingbirds and some Cattle Egrets. Mostly though it was the same stuff we’d seen elsewhere until this last bird I first misidentified as a Smooth-billed Ani. However a closer look at the photos showed it was no such thing. The bill is completely wrong:

In fact I now think this is a Shiny Cowbird.

We did find multiple real Smooth-billed Anis at the next entrance on the west side (after an unplanned hour and a half detour to Mayaguez due to overly trusting in the GPS.)

In the Laguna itself we found dozens of Common Moorhens and dozens more of Caribbean Coots. These look a lot like American Coots, but the white shield extends further up the head. Seems I neglected to take any pictures of these though. :-(

Just a bit further down the path I scoped 20+ West Indian Whistling Ducks that eventually took off from the pond:

The road looked dicey so we sadly didn’t continue on to the tower, but finally on the road out, we stopped to check out some small birds flushed from the road. These proved to be the introduced species Bronze Mannikin:

I’m not sure if these are officially countable here or not. If they are, that’s #494 but I’ll be cautious for now and leave it out. No photos in either case. It was hard enough putting binoculars on these small birds in the heavy Caribbean spring foliage.

West Indian Whistling-Duck
Blue-winged Teal
White-cheeked Pintail
Ruddy Duck
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Little Blue Heron
Cattle Egret
Green Heron
Glossy Ibis
Turkey Vulture
Common Moorhen
Caribbean Coot
Killdeer
Rock Pigeon
Common Ground-Dove
White-winged Dove

Smooth-billed Ani
Gray Kingbird
Greater Antillean Grackle
Shiny Cowbird
Bronze Mannikin
Northern Mockingbird

Finally we drove on to Cabo Roja to try for Brown Booby. No luck there but we did find quite a few shorebird species on the flats:

Magnificent Frigatebird
Black-bellied Plover
Black-necked Stilt
Willet
Lesser Yellowlegs
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
White-winged Dove
Greater Antillean Grackle

#488-489 at the Copa Marina

Elliotte Rusty Harold — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:20:41 +0000

After we got back from Bosque del Seco I took another spin around the hotel grounds. Toward the eastern end, I heard some unfamiliar buzzing noises, and eventually tracked it down to a Bananaquit:

Coereba flaveola bartholemica is a warbler-like bird I could theoretically find in Florida. However I’ve never seen one there. Here they’re relatively common. I’ve seen quite a few since and am starting to recognize the call and song.

A little later on the other side I spotted a Troupial (Icterus icterus), a bright orange, black, and white oriole like bird. I’ve seen it once more since and heard it even more frequently–it’s very loud–but so far I haven’t been able to get a photograph.

The provenance of these birds on Puerto Rico is unknown. They’re probably introduced or escaped, but no one’s quite sure. It’s possible some happened to make the water transit from Venezuela, but if so why aren’t they found on other Caribbean islands too? No one really knows. In any case it’s been around here since at least the 19th century, so I’m counting it.