Mokka mit Schlag » Birding

So far this is an exceptionally warm winter and the birds seem to have noticed. They’re coming north sooner than usual. A few American Robins spend the winter in Prospect Park; but in the last week, they’ve become a lot more common. I counted at least 33 in the Botanical Gardens alone today.

I also had the first Cedar Waxwing of Spring today, and Ed Crowne found our first Winter Wren. Next up are probably the blackbirds: Common Grackle and Red-winged Blackbird. The lake will probably pull in a few more waterfowl. Wood Duck, Ring-necked Duck, and all three mergansers could easily show up any given day. It’s surprising we haven’t seen any of them yet. March will see the shorebirds coming through, and then in April the warblers begin arriving.
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Details are now being posted for the the ABA Convention in Bangor Maine this summer. (That’s American Birding Association, not American Bar Association.) My personal goals for this convention are Gray Jay, Boreal Chickadee, Atlantic Puffin, and Bicknell’s Thrush. Plus possibly a good spotting scope. Hope to see you there!

As well as adding Cackling Goose to my life list, and my first ever four goose day, today stands out as the first time I’ve read a band in the field. Of course when they’re this close and obvious it’s no great achievement:

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I wasn’t planning on going birding today since I’ve got a deadline rolling up on me in just two days, but what can you do when a potential life bird shows up almost in your back yard? You chase it, of course. However today was unusual not just for the life bird. This is my first ever four goose day, and possibly the second ever four goose day in Prospect Park (the first being yesterday).

You see, there’s only one species of goose that’s regular in the park, Canada Goose. That’s an easy bird. There are over hundred, sometimes over 200, here year round; but there’s no other goose you can count on, not even for the year, much less the day. Two other species are not surprising, Snow Goose and Brant. However both are just occasional. Neither is a guaranteed bird for the year in the park. For instance, we missed Snow Goose in 2004. (That still galls me. It would have been our 200th bird for the year. I am sure there was at least one snow geese flock flying over the park sometime in 2004, and just nobody was looking up at the right time.)

But today the stars (or at least the geese) aligned. Simultaneously on the lake we had not one, not two, not three, but four separate species of geese at the same time! This is more than we get most years. The usual Canadas were out in the hundreds. The Snow Goose that was found on the Christmas Count last year was still hanging around. (This bird’s unusually unafraid of people for its species. Most Snow Geese are much more skittish.) A flock of 26 or so Brant that flew in on Friday was still on the lake, and the piece de resistance: a Cackling Goose! Possibly the first ever in the Park.

The Brooklyn Bird Club found this goose at Rye Playland this past weekend on a trip led by Peter Dorosh:

We couldn’t agree on what it was. Some argued for a Canada-Barnacle or Canada-Greater White-fronted hybrid, but to me the size (noticeably bigger than a Canada Goose) means this has to have some domestic Greylag in it; possibly a hybrid between a domestic goose and a Canada Goose. Any other ideas or thoughts?

I picked up two more life birds yesterday on a Westchester trip with the Brooklyn Bird Club led by Peter Dorosh. The first was an Eastern Screech Owl that has been roosting in a tree in Croton Point State Park for a couple of weeks now.
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