Friday I finished my scheduled work for the day a little early so I decided to head down to Owls Head Park in Bay Ridge. The rocks along the bicycle path that starts from there are often a good place to look for Purple Sandpipers, one of my target birds for the year.
(more…)
Saturday I went on a tour of the Monk Parakeet nests at Brooklyn College led by Steve Baldwin. He estimates they’re about 70 parakeets living in the near vicinity of Brooklyn College. City-wide they’re probably a few hundred. They’re additional nests at Greenwood Cemetery, Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, Marine Park and vicinity in Brooklyn, and a few other locations. No one’s sure where they first came from, but the most common hypothesis is that they escaped from a dropped crate at Kennedy airport in the 60’s or some such. Likely escaped pets have also contributed to the population.
Friday, Rob Jett found a Long-eared Owl in Prospect Park. I went looking for it yesterday afternoon without success, but this morning with the help of Steve Nanz I found it in the same tree where the Great Horned Owl roosted over Thanksgiving 2004. I’m going to have to keep an eye on that tree. There must be something about it when seen from the air that’s appealing to owls.
Yesterday Peter Dorosh found a Grey Catbird, possibly the same one that had been seen several times in December; and Arleen O’Brien heard a Fish Crow. She also saw an American Tree Sparrow on Wednesday. So far I’m not being very successful at predicting the next bird to show up. I think I’m going to try to keep track of when the individual birds have shown up. So far, here’s what we have:
(more…)
Yesterday the heater in my building was on the fritz, so I decided that if I was going to freeze anyway, I might as well go outside and see some birds while doing it. (Plus I can’t easily type when the temperature in my office drops below 20°).
I headed out out to Jacob Riis Park to track down a pair of Harlequin Ducks that had been reported there. The Q35 bus dropped me off at Fort Tilden, where I quickly started my day list with Mallard and American Crow, as well as the usual wintering flock of hundreds of Brant.
Boxing day I did the Bronx/Westchester Christmas Bird Count for the first time. I was on the Van Cortland Park team led by Christopher Lyons. John Young and Chuck McAlexander were the other two birders. Not counting the European Starlings and Rock Pigeons in the subway station, my first birds were five American Robins on the Parade Ground as I walked in to meet up with the team at the North end of the lake.
(more…)
