birding
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Roof Bird
Pavo cristatus, the Indian Pea Fowl. Big bird, helluva big voice. The only places I’ve run into these beasts (you should see their spur claws!) in NYC is in Prospect Park, where several boom from the zoo, and occasionally get loose, and on an old estate on Staten Island, near Princes Bay, where you can hear…
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Raptor Wednesday
The all-Merlin (Falco columbarius) edition. In Green-Wood. This falcon, seen here on two different perches, was one of two by the Crescent Water at the same time. The other flew into a nearby tree — but the photography possibilities were not worth posting home about. The second bird took off, followed by the first.…
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Bush Terminal Park
Field Sparrow (Spizella pusilla) on the fence.Female Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus).Carpet of little Brassicas.American Wigeon (Anas americana) and Eurasian Wideon (Anas penelope) drakes lined up for comparison’s sake. If only they’d been a little closer! Eurasian, as name suggest, is out of range; but we get a few in local waters most winters.
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Bubulcus ibis ibis
A Western Cattle Egret has been hanging out in Penn South, a co-op complex in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. There are damn few cattle thereabouts, but these birds, who in their original range (Africa, Middle East, Southern Europe) follow migrating ruminants who kick up a storm of bugs, are adaptable enough to get bugs and…
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New Point Comfort
What’s all this, then? At the limits of my telephoto. An observation platform at the tip of Mathews County, poking into the Chesapeake. And out there, a dead cetacean of some kind being recycled.Bald Eagles were nearby. Posted one is older, but not quite in full adult plumage.There was another juvenile on a nearby island.But it…
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Time Flies
It’s already been a week since we returned from Virginia, where the Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) were present in force. Nests had been claimed and birds were mating repeatedly. Check out the Route 301 bridge over the Potomac: as co-pilot, I spotted six nests near it (three were right over the road on sign towers, two…
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Raptor Wednesday
A scrum of noisy Starlings on the ground suddenly ceased their jabbering. I looked around the sky and the trees. Nothing out of the ordinary, but my raptor senses were activated. I was a few yards from the 9th Street/PPW entrance to Prospect Park. I don’t know if this female Kestrel (Falco sparverius) had spooked…
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Phoebe
Spring’s herald, the Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe). Saw lots in Green-Wood yesterday afternoon.
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Golden Hour
Sunset on the Piankatank. No, as they say, filter.A Horned Grebe (Podiceps auritus) in the twilight gold. Some of these birds were well into their breeding plumage, others not at all. The tidal Piankatank, a contest between the fresh Dragon Run and the briny Chesapeake, was also host to Common Loons and Buffleheads last week.…
Backyard and Beyond 