April Showers - Green-Wood Cemetery

     A grey day just about all day. I wanted to sneak out before the rain and chose Green-Wood Cemetery. I was hoping for woodcock, but that of course, didn't happen. But I did see some other feathered friends that were just as great!
     Highlights include some new spring arrivals, including my most favorite Egret in all of Brooklyn, the Great Egret who lives at the Crescent and Dell Waters. It is reliably in that location for the season in which it lives here and feasts on frogs, minnows and goldfish. Sometimes it shares with great blue heron, green heron, and night herons- but it is just about always at these two water features from spring till fall migration kicks in for her/him.
     Even with raindrops falling, the birds didn't stop. Birds are tough, rain ain't no thing.

Oh what a lovely surprise! A very feisty (and probably hangry) blue-grey gnatcatcher! 

Best brows, wings down!
Normally these birds are catching little insects, so it took to the ground where the most insects could be found. Normally these birds are high, making you crane your neck to catch those flashing outer white edges of the tail, a sure sign of this bird as it flits through the canopy quickly and meticulously.

A magnolia with buds ready to burst had 2 red-breasted nuthatches among its branches, plus 2 more white breasted nuthatch and a yellow-bellied sapsucker.

Working hard, looking hard for some snacks...

Golden-crowned kinglets were also quite busy looking for food. With the cooler temperatures and grey skies, insects were not really flying.

The Green-Wood great egret is back, and in breeding plumage with those beautiful egret feathers flowing behind it.

Once those feather were its biggest flaw, attractive to humans, egrets were nearly wiped out until protected by the migratory bird treaty act. Those plume were popular for fashion. I think they look best on the bird.

The first warblers are here, a palm warbler sits, briefly at the Sylvan water edge. Pine warbler were more plentiful but hard to photo in the low light. There will be plenty more to come as we progress into the month.

My record shot for the rusty blackbird that my eyes sifted out of common grackles, brown-headed cowbirds, and starlings. It's call also confirmed it for me.

A handsome brown-headed cowbird male nomming on some seeds and grassy things.
Seeing all this nomming made me hungry.
I hit up my favorite dumpling spot (that I mis dearly) before heading home and getting my nom on.