Yet another round of catch-up.

     Been birding, been momming, been working, been social, even had an adult only weekend. So in that timeline, blog upkeep has been not a priority. Good news is, on this ultra frigid day where I had zero desire to be outside, I can catch up a bit! In the time its been, I've led some bird outings, birded with friends, and birded solo, so it's been a bit of everything.

On a walk with RISE and NYC Plover Project, I took on a small group to walk the beach with. Enjoyed this common loon downing a crab.

Buffleheads were not in short supply. Saw a number diving along the shoreline.

*bloop*

There were no shortage of ring-billed hulls, but likely the best and most rewarding part of this walk, in the Edgemere neighborhood was getting a number of folks on a razorbill, for many, their first ever!

Last weekend, I visited Baisley Pond Park on Saturday to enjoy the variety of ducks, including this American Wigeon.

Of course, the Baisley Pond Park phenomenon, always reliable for redheads.

Also very reliable are the Ring-neck ducks. This is a female trailing a male.

A gorgeous American black duck.

A fairly disgruntled ring-billed gull who made a stink after some bread was dumped.

Bread dumping is annoying, but always makes for good opportunities to photograph gulls.

After Baisley, I stopped off at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. The East Pond was fairly sparse, but this red-breasted merganser was one among the ruddy ducks she was floating with.

My favorite part of Jamaica Bay winters are the snow geese. I love their giant, noisy flocks.

I was hoping to catch a Northern Pintail this day, and how lucky was I, had two flyover and this third swimming on the West Pond.

Last Sunday I co-led a bird eventwith an amazing birding friend for the Feminist Bird Club. We didn't even get away from the parking lot before seeing our first birds, a pair of American Kestrels.

This female kestrel flew in to join the male we spotted originally. She was rather close, but only silhouetted from our angle.

Had a far off belted kingfisher who later decided to give us the fly-by without a glance back.

While viewing an eared grebe, a rarity for these parts we didn't realize a group of four killdeer were watching us! It was a great walk, lots of weird ducks to spy and on our way out, we had a kestrel with a vole just tearing into her meal right in front of us.

Everything but the waterfowl.

     This weekend I helped one of my friends out with the annual waterfowl count. Their patch to survey is the Coney Island to Brighton Beach waterfront. Things started off fairly slow, but as we moved east along the beach, things picked up. Also, bonus, everything ended with delicious borscht and Russian food in Brighton Beach..

    I mostly took pictures of everything that does not count as waterfowl...

So if it is near the water and in the water, that does not always constitute as waterfowl.
This purple sandpiper is not considered waterfowl.
Waterfowl for the purposes of this count include ducks, geese, loons, swans, and grebes.

But even if it isn't waterfowl, we still stopped and took a look.

Because, if you don't stop and look, you might miss that very subtle purple sheen on those wings.

Purple sandpipers never turn their backs to the sea.
Well, they do, plenty.
But they are touch, living upon rocks in the surf, they power through some big splashes!

Salty spray sparkle makes a purple sandpiper look absolutely fab.

While we saw plenty of Bonaparte's gulls offshore, this one was right at the shore. Gave some nice opportunity to see one close and floating along the waves.

These dainty little gulls have black heads when in their breeding plumage, so in the winter, they just have a little ear patch.

My favorite thing about these gulls is that when they feed while flying, they faceplant into the water. With grace.
They also look lovely with the waves crashing behind them.

While less dainty than the Bonaparte's gull, it's smaller than it's "greater" cousin, this adult lesser black backed gull was a lovely treat.
Again. Not waterfowl.
Standing out with its yellow legs, streaky head, and short stature, the adults are easy to pick out from the regular crowd.

Another treat and also not waterfowl, had a few close views of normally further off-shore northern gannets. 

Another great gull, the bird in the foreground is an Iceland gull with a herring gull further back. The Iceland gull is a nice sight, they are not super common, but there are always a handful around to see. They are easily distinguished from our regular ol' seagulls because of their white wingtips.

Before we wrapped up, we got two red-necked grebes which was a nice way to end the survey and go eat a lot of (very) good food!

Red-headed Woodpecker Neighbor

     So, if there is a red-headed woodpecker less than a 10 minute bike ride from your home, yes. You go see it. Took a 20 minute pause in my morning to grab some looks, some sub-par photos, and yeah, I'm glad I went. Perhaps the little buddy will stick around and maybe even get their full red head in due time.

This immature bird is coming into its red head. Another indicator of its age is that its white wing atches have some black bars,

Red-headed woodpeckers can be found in New York, but like, not reliably where we live, but in other parts of NY, NJ, and places south of us. But a small amount tend to show up every year in the city.

This bird was hanging out in Marine Park, and as for exactly where.... oh I just can't quite recall...

(It was at the entrance near Stuart Street and the Avenue T intersection....)

I hope this bird sticks around into the weekend, I'd love to see it in some better light.

Trying out some infrastructure.... a lamp post.

Potentially just seeking out advice from some urban birds.

A Weekend: From Prospect Park to Staten Island

     What a weekend, it involved birding playdates, scoping seabirds from Coney Island, and chasing a rare hawk on Staten Island.

    In Prosect Park, Kestrel and I met up with another birding mom that we met on one of the bird walks I led. We planned to bird a little part of the lake and up to the feeders. Both areas provide great vantage points for kids to also look at birds and them interacting with each other and their environment. Kestrel recently got a camera for the holidays so she was excited to take pictures of birds. a few of her bird photos are as follows... not half bad, eh?

I suppose we should fix that timestamp setting... But here she captured the "dada" swan, a few duckies (mallard), and a baby duck (coot).

    Today, Sunday, I mostly scoped off the shores of Coney, and got the two birds I was hoping for, a razorbill and a red-necked grebe. Both are rare for our area, so I was quite happy to see them. My original plan was to kinda stop and go along the coast till I got back home. But then I saw an alert for a SWAINSON'S HAWK in Staten Island, saw it was a 15 minutes drive and my plans changed. I was really really happy I made the choice to go, I got there, grabbed some amazing looks and got home to still enjoy lunch.

When birding with the kiddos, you remember that mallards are gorgeous and deserving of attention.

We enjoyed the American coots.... or, as a 2.5 year old calls it, baby ducks.

This one had a lot of opinions.

This hooded merganser flew in with two shovelers and looks to regret its choices?

The feeders are such a great place to visit as a new birders, seasoned birder, or anyone, really. Its so fun to see them easily without a need for binoculars, being active, interacting with other birds. And also why I recommend it for anyone with kiddos who are interested in birds or animals. There is a fence to give birds their space and even the "naughty" blue jays are a delight.

When birding with kids, the most common birds are the ones you come to appreciate. They are reliable treats to the eyes, a little comfort for your bird-needing soul, and with kids, some of their first birds that they will come to recognize. SO please, give us cardinals, blue jays, titmice, and chickadees every day!

For today, I planned to start from Coney Island and bird east back toward home along the shore and waterways. 
Well.
That plan got derailed once I saw there was a Swainson's Hawk in Staten Island and ZERO traffic? Yeah, that choice was made pretty quickly.

This hawk is a juvenile. It seems to have gotten lost as it should be in Argentina or thereabouts.

It was kind of funny to come and see this bird sitting on the ground. These are birds of open fields and grasslands with few trees, so, it isn't fully out of the question to see one on the ground.

Their normal range, here in the states, is their breeding range which is more or less, Western North America, Canada and into Alaska.

I've seen Swainson's Hawks out in Colorado before, but it was a lovely treat to see this one close to come and so close. I took these first few shots from my seat in the car.

I wish I wasn't in the car for this shot, as its taken through my (probably dirty) front windshield. It woulda been a lot cooler without that "filter."

This bird has such long wings when sitting, they do look a good amount different than our common red tailed hawks.

The bird flew a few times, but keeping to the general area.

And when it did land, sometimes it chose some pretty telling background for its not so usual location

While watching this Swainson's, I also got the chance to observe a bunch of other birds, including lesser scaup, Bonaparte's gulls, common goldeneye, gadwall, and a flyover bald eagle.

Whenever out of range birds show up, it's always like a bit of a death sentence for some. As they show up, are starving, and there is little to no food around. Swainson's hawks are mammal and insect predators, so perhaps there is a chance for this bird?

A very Staten Island pic.
It's definitely cheaper to fly across.

In front of the eyes of many observers, the hawk snatched up a rat from the shoreline and flew off with it. 
A word of advice, especially to newer birders who may not know, leave a bird with prey be. Let them eat.
A few birders pursued this bird who was in perfect sight from a respectable distance, a bunch of us had scopes and happy to share. But the birders then pushed the bird to fly off and hide behind a tree to eat, keeping it out of sight for when a number of folks had just arrived to observe.

As it approached 1pm, I took a cue from the hawk. Time for lunch.