Field Notes: JBWR

There were so many tree swallows out at Jamaica Bay even I could get good shoots without a real telephoto.

Birds seen: DC cormorant, Great egret, Snowy egret, Little blue heron, Tricolored heron, Glossy Ibis, Mute swan, Brant, Canada goose, American black duck, Gadwell, mallard, Northern shoveller, Greater scaup, Bufflehead, Ruddy duck, red-breasted merganser, Osprey, Cooper’s hawk, Peregrine falcon, Oystercatcher, Herring gull, Great black-backed gull, Ring-billed gull, Laughing gull, Least tern, Common tern, Forster’s tern, Barn owl, Tree swallow, Barn swallow, Carolina wren, Ruby-crowned kinglet, Am. Robin, Brown thrasher, N. mockingbird, Fish crow, American crow, Yellow-rumped warbler, Cardinal, E. towhee, Song sparrow, White-throated sparrow, Common grackle, Brown-headed cowbird, Red-winged blackbird, Starling, House sparrow.

I saw what looked like a this-year’s raptor nest, smaller than red-tails’, in a crotch of a tree. There were clumps of downy looking-something, but these clumps did not move in the several minutes I looked from several (distant) angles. Perhaps it was some kind of lining. The nest sure moved, though, swaying in the wind. No adults noticed on the nest or nearby. Two Canada goose nests were not six feet from the trail around the West Pond: they are getting entirely too used to people.

Two loose pit bulls were seen by me and another birder I ran into on the east side (we both thought the other belonged to the animals); I reported these at the nature center.
Tent caterpillars, Malacosoma americanum.

It’s starting to get buggy out there. No mosquito bites yet, but I saw a couple. Bumblebees working flowering apples and other blossoms. One spring azure, plus a couple of cabbage whites.