quick walks in Prospect Park

After a self-guided walking tour yesterday of the Lower East Side with a friend (can you say Pickle Guys and Doughnut Plant?) I had a tiny window of time to scope out some birds in Prospect Park before picking the kids up from school. The sky was as clear and blue as I've ever seen it, and the brightness of the afternoon sun made it necessary to get "on the other side of the bird" with the sun at my back to get a good view. For the half-hour I was there, I had a pretty good time. (Gross understatement. I am at my happiest when looking at awesome birds.)

Almost immediately in my trek across the area that overlooks the ballfields, I spotted a yellow-rumped warbler hanging around a big tree that seemed to be hosting many tiny birds. To my absolute delight, they turned out to be golden-crowned kinglets, my very first ones. They are absolutely as beautiful as I dreamed they would be. Later, near the parking lot of Litchfield Villa, I encountered a group of white-throated sparrows kicking up leaf litter. White-crowned and tan-crowned individuals were present. It was cool to see both types at the same time, for comparison. I climbed the stairs up to the villa and turned around to be even with the canopy of a tall tree. Many kinglets and a few warblers zipped around this tree, including a black-and-white warbler and something with a yellow face and olive appearance overall. It was gone too quickly for me to notice much.

Later the kids had soccer practice, so I had an hour to walk around. I stuck to the area around the pools and had a bunch of great sightings. At the wildflower meadow, many elusive flashes of bird came and disappeared into the thickets instantly, but I got a good look at a northern parula. I love that yellow lower mandible. On the Path Between the Pools I found a northern flicker, a blue jay, and a possible tufted titmouse (one can only hope - I love those guys). On the path leading back to the Long Meadow I successfully found a black-throated blue warbler which a fellow birder named Gil clued me in about. On the Long Meadow side in the brush beyond the fence and toward the pools, I hunted down little leaf-crunching noises and rustlings until I found their source - a brilliant common yellowthroat.

This autumn of my birding life is fun in a different way than last autumn. I have a much bigger mental catalog of birds I can identify by sight and sound, so I'm not oohing and aahing blindly every time a house sparrow deigns to look at me. I guess I can afford to be a little more selective and adventurous. That's not to say any of the magic has gone out of it - rather the opposite. The game is just beginning, now that I know how to play!

no, really, i'm still here

I've had a lot on my mind of late, and haven't been out birding in earnest for a while, as you can guess from the dearth of recent entries. I have, however, seen some great birds quite by accident, including plenty of downy woodpeckers, a brown creeper on an 8th Avenue tree trunk, and a group of ruby-crowned kinglets in the massive evergreen where I work. This weekend Chrissy and I venture to Erie, PA, for a screening of his film, 41. We'll take our time getting there, catching up on some much-needed letterboxing and birdwatching.

Even though I've been preoccupied, I did get a chance to celebrate Hawk Weekend by attending the bird show at the Prospect Park Audubon Center.

I hope to see some awesome stuff this weekend. If you know any places we should stop for birds between NYC and Erie, PA, let me know!

accidental find

On Friday, I was walking my charge home from school when we noticed something distinctly not sparrow in the lowest branches of a big tree on 8th Avenue. We stood for about a minute, telling each other what we could see about the bird: two white wing bars, bluish grey wings and lower back and face, yellow breast, white belly and under-tail, greenish-yellow upper back, white around dark eyes, tiny sharp beak. The little fellow (the bird, not the boy) swung around the thin branches nimbly in search of better purchase, coming within five feet of my face. We looked it up in my field guide upon arriving at home, and I think we had a first-year female northern parula on our hands. I have to commend the kid's school for last year's field-trip-ridden science unit on birdwatching -- it's given him the vocabulary to talk about birds and it's given me a chance to share the source of my daily joy.

good times at Prospect Park

Today I volunteered at Prospect Park Lake for International Coastal Cleanup Day. While I was very busy cleaning up the lakeshore, I had my eyes open for birds and trash and I kept a mental list. Of note: a hummingbird at some jewelweed bushes; a pair of pants; the juvenile mute swan looking hale and hearty; a sock filled with something brown, unscented, and gelatinous; the first American coots of the season; a bloated raccoon corpse; a beautiful seashell; drug paraphernalia; a coconut; and an unbelievable number of plastic bottles and bags. I had a great time meeting people and working toward a common goal, especially one that helps the animals and park I love so well.

The next cleanup, which I'm hoping to attend, is scheduled for October 18 to prepare Lookout Hill for the Halloween Haunted Walk & Carnival. Also, this coming weekend, September 27 & 28, is Hawk Weekend. I was too shy and too new a birder to feel comfortable participating last year, but this time around I'm really excited to see what Hawk Weekend is all about. I suspect the event will be largely for children, but I'm interested in seeing the bird show, at the very least. There's so much I can learn!

and for a fleeting moment, there passed between them a faint sense of some common destiny

Yesterday I walked through the park on my way to work, but didn't have my binocs or time to scan my surroundings for birds. I hesitated between the Nethermead and the steep hill to the Long Meadow because I yearned for a few extra minutes to sneak into the horse path to look for warblers. Just as I resolved to ignore the wonderful possibilities and just go to my job, a buzzing speck of green shot past me, hovered over a bush, and zipped into the woods. My flesh thrilled with goosebumps of recognition and elation: the hummingbird I had asked the universe for on my birthday had appeared! Though it was a brief and distant encounter, I thanked life, the universe, and everything for conspiring to deliver my belated birthday present.

Fast forward about twenty-four hours.

This afternoon I traipsed into Prospect Park to sniff out some migrants. The air was sun-filled and warm with a cool breeze - one of my favorite kinds of weather. I hit a few of my usual spots and found a few of my usual birds: blue jay, cardinal, robin. I could see very little from my perch on the Path Between the Pools, but the moment I asked for an ovenbird, one appeared right in front of me. I think having a sense of what to ask for, you know, things that are possible, not outlandish or selfish, really helps. I decided to haunt the area where yesterday I briefly met the green speck. Was I ever in luck! I spotted a little buzzer among the jewelweed flowers, quickly got on the bird, and enjoyed thoroughly my first live close-up of a ruby-throated hummingbird - female. About ten seconds into the great view, I heard the scream of red-tailed hawks above and nearby. Stupidly I wheeled around, just in time to spot three of them heading out over the Nethermead in search of an afternoon snack. Blessedly, the hummingbird lingered long enough for me to observe her again, this time for a minute or more, as she paused deliberately at the tiny orange flowers to glean their sweet nectar. Soon she zoomed up and up and over the trees, out of sight. The combination of my first great hummingbird sighting and the three red-tails in the late summer sun qualifies as the best birding minute of my life so far -- must leave room for more wonders!