January Wrap-Up

     Keeping up with this has been rough and so, I'll just share some moments from January. This month has been hard, we've had some covid among our family, no symptoms, juts a rapid test revealed one of us were positive. So we had some isolation, quarantined our kid at home while working, and just trying to keep positive. Birding had been hard to want to even do but, I'm hoping that things will get better as we move into 2022.

    And now, we shall commence the photo dump:

A few days into the new year I got out to do some fast birding after work. Enjoyed purple sandpipers along the Belt Parkway. I love these little chonkers.

A drake Northern Pintail was spotted in Coney Island Creek, and has continued to since, as far as I am aware. A handsome bird, I'll never forget finding one on the pond at work when I was a zookeeper, it was within such close range, it's beauty knocked me off my feet.

And all in the same day as the pintail and purple sandpiper, I made one last end of day stop at Plumb and enjoyed this hen Harrier who for sure saw me first.

On another ultra cold day, I birded Green-Wood Cemetery with my friend Christine. On the slope of the Dell Water were a group of sun bathing mourning doves. I love when they sit like chickens. 

The Dell Water has the most bird action because the feeders were full, to the delight of this house finch.

Before we ended our walk around the cemetery we had a nice view of two red tails flying and circling over Sylvan Water.

One day before work, I did a quick run around Prospect Park. Saw this raccoon go into a hollow, high up in a tree in the midwood.

Do not mess with her.
Love all the thorns she has decided to perch upon.

Can almost get a hint of those coot feet when they are in the shallows.

Surprised to see this great blue heron, surrounded by ice, in its own small pool of water.

Coot feet are even easier to see when they just walk out of the water. Those funny feet are flattened for paddling and swimming but also helpful for strutting up onto the shore.

Ben playing with the settings on my camera lately... Trying to figure out how to get better action shots. This young swan played model for that. It's going, meh.

The feeders this morning were primarily blackbirds, red-wings and grackles. But a few interlopers made it in, like this downy woodpecker.

This Carolina Wren also made it to the feeders, using the ones no one was visiting.

Last week my friend Christine and I were toying with the crazy idea of driving to ME to see the Steller's Sea Eagle. We bailed on that idea, instead saw a Mountain Bluebird instead.
This is a Mountain Bluebird.

This is an Eastern Bluebird.
This bird is from here, New York.

The Mountain bluebird is not, it's a western species.
Both were happy to hang together in a small flock and feast upon the berries of the cedar trees near the parking lot of Esopus Meadow's Preserve. We just hopped out of the car and there it was!

It also was like one of those days where the high was in the teens, so we were happy this was just a get out of the car and look bird.

As the bluebirds came out, disappeared, then reappeared, we also enjoyed other birds. Titmouse, nuthatches, and various woodpeckers were plentiful.
A really nice treat was this yellow-bellied sapsucker sucking sap!

You can see their classic wells, small circles, drilled in a row, fresh and flowing with sap. Luckily for him, this tree was not frozen and still had sap to flow out! We know this bird is male because of all that red on his chin and forehead.

The bluebirds, both species were a nice treat their colors made us smile and they were at times obliging models.

One last look at the Mountain Bluebird before it hopped down to the (Hudson) River for a drink and flew off.
It's the kind of cold that day that most of the river northward had ice on it.

We stopped for lunch and beers in New Paltz and Clemson Brewery - highly recommend then after some warm up time, it was just about right to go visit Shawangunk. The birds were really far off this time around but we still had some nice aerial scuffles between the harriers and short-eared owls.

Yesterday I did some birding after I did my morning chores. As I scanned from the boat launch lot at Floyd Bennett Field, A little sea puppy and I locked eyes.
It's always good to see Harbor Seals inside Jamaica Bay!

An extra special surprise, one of two American Tree Sparrows. This made me very very happy.

Still continuing to play with my camera and its (many) settings, I was happy to get semi decent pictures in overcast and even capture the snow flurries that were happening all morning. This song sparrow was foraging in the thicket along the Return-A-Gift Pond.

When I thought the American Tree Sparrow made me happy, I got a second shot of happiness for this Fox Sparrow who hopped into the open and paused.
I LOVE FOX SAPRROWS.
So this was perfection.
And again, with the snow gently falling around them...

There were not many other people out at Floyd except one guy going for his walk.
When he passed us, the foxy dove down into the thicket.
I was grateful for our time together...

But then it popped back up again, as if we had a connection by way of our similar plumage and we just started longingly at one another. I love the curly vine tendrils it chose to sit near.

Thank you, little Fox Sparrow, you made me so happy.... and now the background on my laptop.
It was at this point where I was very satisfied, if I saw nothing else for the rest of the day, and missed my photo of the giant flock of horned larks, meh - I saw some very awesome sparrows.
But then...

I pulled up to the community garden, it was full of Canada Geese, at least 100, maybe more. They blanketed the entire grassy picnic area. I was very outnumbered, so I kept to the edges. I was not wanting to have a goose aggressively approach me.
Geese can be punks, I didn't want to find out if these were the fight-y versus flighty type.

The #1 rule with large groups of geese, scan, maybe there is a prize inside. And there were two! Two snow geese were among the flock.
And again, with the gentle flurry around them they were just so perfect. If they are even there today, I hope they can keep their necks above the snow!

Had a good laugh at this Canada who gave zero hecks about my photo taking agenda.

As for this, I was happy to see some birds before this snow rolled through. It's a blanket of white out there and still coming down at this moment.
Hoping for a more positive February and looking forward to some adventure.