Sparrow Season

     I was noticing my photos were not coming out super sharp, so I took my camera and lens in for a cleaning and whew, it made a lovely difference!
     The sparrows are out in full force and taking a closer look at that little brown buddy can reveal a heck of a lot. I took a quick trip into Floyd Bennett Field Friday before celebrating the 3rd year of the Feminist Bird Club's existence and then I joined a Feminist Bird Club walk on Saturday, led by the AMAZING Akilah!
     Good birds, good people, there isn't too much more I ask for in life!

Savannah sparrows are ever present in grassy, open areas. They are so sharp looking, I love their pink bills and yellow faces.

Also plentiful and possibly arriving in these parts to over-winter, yellow-rumped warblers.
These butter butts survive here over winter as they switch from an insectivorous diet to one of berries, able to survive the winter on those winter fruits.

A round little chap, a swamp sparrow!
At Shirley Chisholm State Park, a very new state park, that was once the Pennsylvania Avenue Landfill, it's amazing the life thriving there.
I recall as a kid, driving with my mom to visit her Brooklyn family, and we'd all make the yucky face as we drove by and got a whiff of the landfill that remained as such well into the mid-90's.
The landfill was capped in the early 2000's and covered in soil.
Now it acts as a habitat that is a rare sight in New York, grassland. Grasslands are disappearing and are ph so important for many local species for breeding, hunting, and migration.

Activing fishing the waterways, this is one of a pair of belted kingfishers.

A nice surprise, a juvenile white-crowned sparrow, spotted briefly.

Another nice surprise was this (one of two) greater yellow-legs and 21 semipalmated plovers, just resting next to the Penn Pier area.

Also off of Penn Pier, one can enjoy fishing. Both bird and humans were busy fishing off the pier.

I do love me a photogenic double-crested cormorant in a fall's golden morning light.