New Year, New List

     The New Year is always exciting because it means your year list starts a new! It's even more of a bonus if on day one you get a good bird. In the area, there are a lot of tantalizing birds being reported... painted buntings (yes, plural!), a Townsend's warbler, Iceland Gulls, and this afternoon, a Western Grebe.
     I was lured for a varied thrush spotted in Prospect Park. Tim was a trooper and asked to come, he found a nice football while we all stood around scoping out the area it was most recently seen in. Unfortunately a Cooper's Hawk lingered, for a long time, scaring off most birds in the area. Good thing our friend Jeffrey was there and did what he does well, break away from the group and finding the bird everyone is after. Truly, he is really good at that.
     Jeffrey re-found the bird, who proved to be not super cooperative in allowing us to view it as it foraged in leave and then sat in branches intertwined within each other. Somehow, I got some mediocre photos with a lot of patience.

I thought this cardinal would be it for the day.
He was glorious, but not the bird I was after.

There we go.
A varied thrush. In a difficult tangle of sticks, limbs, and branches.

A bird of the Pacific Coast, I saw one last January in Staten Island. Can this become a January tradition?

In the same family as our American Robins, these varied thrushes can be quite beautiful with that orange and slate color.

Happy New Year, hope your year bird list is off to a good start!