Mokka mit Schlag » Birding

Despite the cold weather I made a quick spin around the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens and Prospect Park Lake for the Great Backyard Bird Count. My best birds were a Northern Pintail that’s been hanging out in the lake and one male Bufflehead, both the first reported in new York State for this count. The wind off the lake was bitterly cold so I didn’t stay out long, but I did tally 22 species and close to a thousand individual birds (mostly gulls and geese):
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Last night I was at the Silver Swan for Extreme Tuesday NYC, when I noticed on the menu “Wild Canadian Muscovy Duck”. Methinks someone embellished the menu a little too much. Muscovy Duck is a South American species. While Muscovies are commonly raised on farms, and escaped birds do appear regularly at least as far north as New York, I very much doubt anyone in Canada is hunting them. If they are, they’re doing it in city parks. Either these birds weren’t wild, or they weren’t Muscovies.

P.S. I had the beef.

I’ve been so busy with writing lately that I haven’t had a lot of time to bird. However, yesterday I took a couple of hours for a spin around Prospect Park. I felt like I was playing hooky, and that I should really be writing instead. (I’ve got a looming deadline for March 15.) Nothing too surprising, 30 species total including my first King’s County Common Merganser for the year:
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Croton Point Park, 2007-01-27

Lafreniere Park, Jefferson Parish, 2006-12-27

Bayou Sauvage National Wildife Refuge, 2006-12-23