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.

Christmas Gifts

 I took off some time before Christmas to prevent stress and anxiety and I can tell you how that just didn't at all go according to plan. I did the typical Christmas things, bake some cookies (far less than in years past), stand in line for two hours at a covid test site, before they opened in hopes that I could be the first person in (and out), plans to give the house a through cleaning, and maybe, just maybe squeeze in some birding.

Well, all was moving along smoothly, I got in my birding and added two more year birds to my year list and arrived home to commence the cleaning and then we learned the kiddos class had a kid who tested positive. So now my stress, anxiety, and my need to make other people happy and putting their happiness and satisfaction over my own went into hyper drive. After some ugly crying by yours truly, we decided its best for our Christmas to just be us three in our home, a second year in a row.

So now all that has passed and it is a quiet day, and while the kiddo naps, I can share the little bit of nature I got to myself, my very favorite kind of gift all year round.

I arrived to Owl's Head Park in Bay Ridge to find a yellow-bellied sapsucker. A delightful little woodpecker who despite the cold I was feeling felt like a good sign. If the sap is flowing there may be some insects and maybe some food for the bird I came here to see.

I searched for a good 15-20 minutes among the trees in the area folks kept reporting it in. And I was just about to leave when I saw a flighted out and back from a low branch.
Bingo!

An Ash-throated flycatcher was being reported for a number of days, a week plus at this point. Looks similar to a great crested flycatcher, with cinnamon wing and tail feathers, whiter throat and more pale yellow of the belly, this stout little bird is a denizen of dry places like the southwest.

This bird was actively catching food while I watched it which meant it moved about a lot.

I love when they fluff up their head feather, another notable feature of this bird and its closely resembling family member, the great crested flycatcher.

Instead of catching anything in flight (although these birds so primarily eat spider, who also do not fly), this bird was diving into the leaf litter below its perch and coming up with unidentifiable things that it tossed back and swallowed as I watched.

One of my favorite features of birds that tend to catch insects on the wing are those whiskers which are modified feather that serve the same purpose as mammalian whiskers.

That feathery crown with the sideways glare, perfection.

I headed next, and briefly, to Bush Terminal Piers Park hoping to see a gull who was unlike many of the others. DO you see it?

A black headed gull (without its black head- they only have that for their breeding plumage) is easy to spot when you can the group and see those bright orange-red legs!
The wind was whipping and cold, so I only briefly enjoyed the view.

I did get to see a few gorgeous American Black Ducks. I love their chocolate brown feathers with that denim blue blaze. 

Often mistaken for a female mallard, they are not. One easy way to tell is to take a look at that blue blaze...

If this were a female mallard, that blue would be bordered by black and white on both sides, so this bird is showing us that he is a Black Duck.
We also know it is a male or drake because of its yellow bill, females have an olive colored bill.

And he is also showing us that he is ready for his closeup!

Wish us luck as we now try to make our way through a week of having to keep the kid home because her class is closed. Thankfully she BEGS to go outside and outside is probably one of the more safe places for us to be and get out our energy. The parks and birds within will be our saving grace this week!

Henslow's Sparrow

    This past week I had the opportunity to work out of Green-Wood Cemetery where it just so happened a cool bird was hanging out. So OF COURSE I got there early, saw the bird and marveled. A Henslow's Sparrow hung out for nearly a week in Green-Wood Cemetery (perhaps its still there, who knows) and has been quite reliable in its location and the fact that it can be seen. 

Normally a denizen of wet grasslands and prairie where it is damn hard to find, here it is in the (short) grasses of the cemetery.

Normally quite secretive, this bird is said to be fairly worry-free along its migration route as it did it's thing amongst an adoring small group of its biggest fans.

Little is known about this bird in the winter as its fairly silent and secretive in its winter range. SO I'll consider this life bird a special one, I can't imagine seeing this species too often as grasslands are hard to come by and even in this short grass, you could lose sight of this bird.

In the spring and summer this bird primarily eats insects but come winter it switches over to a diet of seeds.

My favorite thing about this bird was its behavior, even in the shortest of grasses, it was very mousy and burrowed through the smallest of blades.

It was also fairly cold this morning, so this bird had gone borb a fair number of times.

The patterns and colors on this bird were absolutely stunning.

Serious borb content right here.

most of the time, this little bird was busy just shoving food it found in its mouth.

ohmmygoff, haff ya haff fifh seeth?! Isso goo! ohmmmm nom nom nom!

thif seed, iths delishisth!!

Later, while on the clock and completing one of our activities for work... we accidentally stumbled upon the group observing the bird and I helped my other colleagues also get their lifer Henslow's Sparrow!

And to round out all the cuteness, the Quaker parrots were being extra cute. Poor bird at the top had no snuggle pal.

All the pairs. So damn cute.