Edward
Umimmak
Impressions of a first trip to North America
15-22 May 2006
In mid-May I visited New York City with my wife for a week on a non-birding trip (my wife isn't remotely interested in birding but is more than happy to let me disappear for a couple of hours each day, as long as she isn't expected to come with me). However, I had cunningly contrived the timing of the trip to coincide with warbler migration through Central Park and as I never go anywhere without my binoculars I was looking forward to spending the early mornings in Central Park in search of warblers, vireos and tanagers. It was my first trip to North America and so there were numerous common American species that I was expecting to see for the first time. Like many European birders who have never crossed the Atlantic I have a "good superficial" knowledge of American birds, by which I mean that Sibley's field guide is regularly thumbed through at home, (most often in the autumn to brush up on the differences, say, between fall Bay-breasted and Blackpoll Warblers - just in case), and so I have a rough idea of what's there, but of course have little or no feeling for the birds in the field and no knowledge at all of local bird song. As I do 99% of my birding in Iceland I've seen numerous American wildfowl, wader and gull species and thirteen species of American passerine but I was still hoping to see 50 or so new species. In fact I recorded 111 species in all, of which 71 were new. New York City is an exceptional place for urban birding and as flights from Europe can be had relatively cheaply and there is accommodation to suit every price range it makes a superb destination for a short trip away. And when you're not birding there are just one or two things you can do in New York City.
Sites
I visited two main sites over the week, Central Park on four occasions early in the morning, and then the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge near JFK for half a day. There are numerous other sites, such as Prospect Park in Brooklyn, which attract plenty of local birders but I just didn't have the time. Visitors to New York should look at two excellent websites in particular, the NYC Bird Report www.nycbirdreport.com which proved invaluable in giving me an idea beforehand of what birds might be around in May, and secondly Phil Jeffrey's outstanding Central Park Birding http://www.philjeffrey.net/cpb_index.html which provides all the information you need as a first time birder to the park. Central Park is full of birders in May and the ones I spoke to were very helpful and friendly, particularly when they discovered that I was a birder visiting from Europe for the first time. I basically concentrated on the area called the Ramble but there are numerous other areas to investigate.
Daily log
15 May 2006
We arrived in New York early evening and the first bird seen at JFK was America's least favourite bird, European Starling. A crow flying over was my first new bird: it was all black, cawed and was in America and was therefore an American Crow, perhaps my least exciting lifer since seeing Spotless Starling in Spain. The only other birds seen on the way into Manhattan were Feral Pigeon, House Sparrow and American Herring Gull but to be honest I was too entranced by the Manhattan skyline to notice much else.
16 May 2006
I woke up early (still slave to Icelandic time) to torrential rain but walked the two blocks from the apartment to Washington Square Park to see if I could find any common birds. The dominant bird sounds in New York City are the ones that dominated my past in England (House Sparrow) and my present in Reykjavik (European Starling). In the park I quickly saw a new bird, Gray Catbird, which would prove to be abundant everywhere I went. I heard its supposedly cat-like call but found it a far less convincing feline sound than the unrelated Green Catbird and Spotted Catbird of eastern Australia, which really do meow and yowl (and cry like babies). Coming from the trees was a European Blackbird-like song, which although I'd never heard before I knew could only be an American Robin. Indeed there were plenty of them around and although common it was good to see this iconic American thrush for the first time. Hopping around the verges with the House Sparrows was a splendid White-throated Sparrow, and my first warbler of the trip was a female Common Yellowthroat which showed itself briefly on top of a bush before disappearing once more into the foliage. The final lifer of the wet morning session was an Ovenbird, whose jerky high-stepping gait was so distinctive that I hardly needed to lift my binoculars to identify another three birds later on in the park. The rest of the day was spent dodging rain showers and being overawed by Manhattan.
17 May 2006
This was my first proper birding session, up early to catch the subway to Central Park, seeing a Mourning Dove feeding by the roadside on the Avenue of the Americas on the way to the station. As I wasn't completely sure of which trains were local and which were express I got out at 59th Street (I wanted to go to 72nd Street ideally but suspected, wrongly, that the train didn't stop there). Looking up at the towering skyscrapers around Columbus Circle I soon saw a Red-tailed Hawk circling above, one of only two raptor species I saw on the trip. Although it was only 6:00 a.m. Central Park was already full of joggers and cyclists and I made a beeline to the Ramble area, on the way seeing dozens of American Robins (as common as our Redwings in summer in Iceland). A small group of brilliantly iridescent birds were Common Grackles, a real "junk" bird to the locals but a new bird for me. A startling song from a low branch was traced to a Baltimore Oriole, a bird I saw once on a windswept beach in Iceland but not in such stunning plumage. At the edge of the Ramble, just by Bow Bridge, I met the first local birders peering into the trees. I asked what they were looking at. "Not much," replied one, "just an American Redstart, Northern Parula, Magnolia Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler and a Warbling Vireo." Not much?! Here were five new birds in the same tree and although four proved to be common in Central Park, this was the only Warbling Vireo I saw. A sparrow began singing on the top of a nearby bush, a Song Sparrow, and two Chimney Swifts flew over the lake. Just as I was crossing the bridge a brilliant red caught my eye, a Northern Cardinal and just inches below it a Red-winged Blackbird, again two abundantly common local birds but very attractive to this first time visitor. Double-crested Cormorants dried their wings in the sun and a fly-by Great White Egret made this just about the most widespread species I've ever seen, from Australia to Iceland, from Kenya to the US. Once in the Ramble proper I was soon arrested by a warbler flitting around the lower branches of a pathside tree, a male Black-throated Blue Warbler, one of five warblers I'd seen previously in Iceland but not in this fabulous spring plumage. Next up was a Yellow Warbler and then my first male Common Yellowthroat. Gray Catbirds were everywhere and Magnolia Warblers, American Redstarts, Northern Parulas were numerous all morning. I then entered an area of denser undergrowth where I thought there might be thrushes. I soon saw two birds that I'd seen in adjacent gardens in Iceland last autumn, Swainson's Thrush and Hermit Thrush, and then a new Catharus, Veery. Living in Iceland means that identifying woodpeckers by their call is not really my forte but when one called near me I realised it must be one of four or five species and eventually tracked down a Downy Woodpecker. There were numerous groups of birders in the Ramble and whilst I didn't feel particularly inclined to tag along with them (or impose on them either) I was very grateful when I overheard one of the group leaders say as I was passing that he had found a male Chestnut-sided Warbler, a fabulous looking bird and one of my most wanted species before I came. I saw several more during the trip and never tired of them. A couple of Ovenbirds strutted through the leaf litter whilst in a wetter area I came across two Northern Waterthrushes. A passing birder alerted me to the song of a Red-eyed Vireo and I ended up seeing it well. I moved on to Strawberry Fields where I ran into friendly Brooklyn birder Stanley Greenberg who was kind enough to accompany me for the next hour or two. The next new bird was a small flock of noisy Cedar Waxwings. A bit further along the path we saw a male Wilson's Warbler and in a small stream a Spotted Sandpiper. We made our way slowly through the woods, and I stopped virtually every time we came across a Black-and-white Warbler, a particular favourite of mine, and then had good views of two Yellow-rumped Warblers. We arrived at a small clearing where the assembled birders gave me the frustrating news that my two most wanted birds, male Cape May and Blackburnian Warblers had just flown away but there was some recompense in very close views of a Red-bellied Woodpecker, my last lifer on a very satisfying first morning in Central Park.
18 May 2006
My Icelandic body clock meant that I was in Central Park before 6:00 a.m. but I was still not the first birder there. Magnolia Warblers were the first birds to greet me (it's amazing how quickly you get blasé about birds that were lifers less than 24 hours earlier) at Strawberry Fields. Rounding the corner I then encountered a birder who seemed strangely familiar to me. When he heard that I was the "Icelandic birder with the Cockney (sic) accent" who had been wandering the park yesterday (the bush telegraph is very efficient in Central Park) he greeted me with an Icelandic phrase he'd once learnt. The penny then dropped, the man in front of me was Chris Cooper who I had met in January at the Hippo Pools in Nairobi! I spent the next four hours in Chris’s company and his great knowledge of bird songs certainly found me a few birds that I would otherwise have missed. The first bird he picked up on by song was a male Indigo Bunting, which was elusive at first but eventually showed itself well. Then he got me onto a female Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Two Northern Flickers flicked in and ended up mating right in front of us. The next new warbler was a delightful male Canada Warbler and I was to see several of these over the following days. Back to yesterday’s thrush zone, we soon saw a singing Wood Thrush and a couple more poking through the leaf litter. Suddenly two sparrows on the flew up from the path and landed a bit further on. I quickly tried to conjure up what I’d crammed into my brain about New World sparrows before I came, knowing that Chris recognised them immediately and that he waiting for me to get it. Sparrow ID may not be rocket science but they are fairly confusing to a US virgin and all kinds of names were going through my head, and eventually Chris put me out of my misery. They were Swamp Sparrows and he went through the ID features. A tail-pumping warbler close by was a female Prairie Warbler, the only one I saw all trip, and then two male Blackpoll Warblers and a male Black-throated Green Warbler put in an appearance. At our next stop we found Chris’s bird of the day, or perhaps his bird of the week. We were alerted by a movement high in the treetops and what we initially expected to be a Scarlet Tanager actually turned out to be a Summer Tanager, a scarce migrant in the park and one I hadn’t expected to see at all. However, my favourite birds of the trip were just around the corner. Chris honed in on the sound of a singing Cape May Warbler and whilst searching for it my bins settled on a female Blackburnian Warbler. Soon though I was enjoying superb views of my number one target bird, a wonderful male Cape May Warbler. Naturally the female Blackburnian was a new bird but I really wanted to see a male, and I didn’t have to wait long as Chris heard one singing high in a tree and then a flash of orange materialised into a terrific male Blackburnian Warbler, one of the most attractive passerines you could ever hope to see. It got better as the reddest bird I’ve ever seen, a male Scarlet Tanager, joined us and just when I thought I couldn’t squeeze any more out of one tree a Yellow-billed Cuckoo flew in. Such is Central Park birding. One of the group which had gathered round to admire this trio then revealed that she’d just seen another much wanted warbler and after a five-minute search 100 metres away (stopping for a lifer Brown Thrasher en route) I was looking at an outrageously attractive male Bay-breasted Warbler and just for good measure a male Chestnut-sided Warbler came into view, the 19th warbler of a simply unforgettable morning – a real case of warblergasm. The last stop of the day was at Belvedere Castle where another tiger-like male Cape May Warbler was being very co-operative and singing at eye level, drawing quite a crowd, and it was time to head back to the subway, seeing my final new bird of the day by the Bow Bridge, an Eastern Kingbird.
20 May 2006
An early morning start saw me taking the A train for the 45-minute ride to Broad Channel, from where it’s a 15-minute walk to another of New York’s prime birding locations, the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. Leaving the station you head for the main street and turn right. It wasn’t long before I saw a bird that I always dream of finding in Iceland, a Willet, and its incredibly striking wing pattern won’t present much of an ID challenge if it does turn up. Some distant swallows turned out to be Barn Swallows and a few Tree Swallows (which later proved absolutely abundant and very tame in the area). A front garden in Broad Channel held a flock of House Sparrows and the first of several Brown-headed Cowbirds. When I arrived at Jamaica Bay the first bird to greet me in the car park was one that I was frankly surprised not to have seen yet in Central Park, a Northern Mockingbird. I first checked out the West Pond which is a 1.5 mile loop through woodlands and round a freshwater lake, with mudflats on one side. Although the woods didn't have the range of species of Central Park (being far less extensive) I was still at that stage of American birding that every rustle in the bushes, every sound from the undergrowth had the potential of being a new bird. A beautiful Eastern Towhee sang its presumably onomatopoeic song from a low tree, a persistent yet skulking singer revealed itself as a White-eyed Vireo and I was delighted when I followed a noisy bird down a side trail to have a Carolina Wren with a huge caterpillar in its bill appear fearlessly in front of me. Song Sparrows and Yellow Warblers were particularly common and once out of the wooded areas the proximity to extensive wetlands was betrayed by Forster's Terns, Laughing Gulls, Black-crowned Night Herons and Snowy Egrets regularly drifting over. A path led past Tree Swallow nest boxes, past Red-winged Blackbirds chasing Brown-headed Cowbirds, to a viewpoint over some exposed mudflats where familiar birds awaited, Red Knot, brightly plumaged Ruddy Turnstones, a single Dunlin and lots of Grey Plovers (a.k.a. Black-bellied Plovers in these parts). More exciting were single Tricolored and Little Blue Herons, a Short-billed Dowitcher and a large flock of Semipalmated Sandpipers, which the tide eventually pushed to within 10 metres of where I was sitting. The main lake now had a Black-crowned Night Heron and a Yellow-crowned Night Heron side by side and the large-tailed grackle by the water's edge was in fact a male Boat-tailed Grackle. There was a selection of common ducks (the American species which I hadn't seen before had long since migrated north), a group of enthusiastic teenage birders drew my attention to two Least Terns and a Common Tern on the beach, and here I saw my first American Oystercatchers, which resembled the familiar Eurasian Oystercatchers of home but have faded plumage as if they’ve done a few cycles in the washing machine. Another new wader, a small flock of Least Sandpipers, fed at very close range on the edge of the pond and three Lesser Yellowlegs and two Greater Yellowlegs turned up allowing close comparison. I'd been told that Fish Crows were pretty common at Jamaica Bay but unless you heard them they are virtually indistinguishable from American Crows, especially to someone with no experience of them at all. Virtually every crow I saw was either frustratingly silent or cawed American Crow style but just as I was leaving three birds flew over giving the diagnostic call of Fish Crow. The last new bird before leaving the West Pond was American Coot, three of them in fact, and it was time to check out the East Pond. This was rather quiet (both in birds and birders) but it was nice to see Ruddy Ducks in their natural habitat and an Osprey eating a fish on a stump was only the second raptor species I'd see all trip. Walking back to the station two downy chicks scuttled past me on an abandoned parking lot. I had an idea what they were immediately, but a few seconds later both parents appeared and confirmed my suspicions, Killdeer.
21 May 2006
This morning I decided to head further north in Central Park, getting out of the subway at 86th Street and walked north through the park past the Reservoir. One of the first birds which caught my eye was another hair-raisingly handsome male Blackburnian Warbler, and the usual warbler suspects were again conspicuous in the park, Black-and-white Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, American Redstart as well as my first female Cape May Warbler and two confiding male Bay-breasted Warblers. Whilst birders in this area were far scarcer than in the Ramble I soon tagged onto Central Park regular Jim Demes near a pool south of Great Hill (I'm sure this pool's called something but I can't remember). I was looking at a Spotted Sandpiper in the stream when Jim suddenly shouted, "Holy Crap, get over here, it's a Philadelphia Vireo!" And there indeed drinking from the stream was a Philadelphia Vireo, certainly the 'best' bird of the week in terms of local rarity, although this wasn't such an issue with me as nearly everything was new anyway. We moved towards Great Hill and in a dense area a smallish, neat sparrow perched briefly and disappeared. Jim's initial feeling on the brief glimpse was that it was a Lincoln's Sparrow and after a five minute search he was proved right and we had good views of it. Another stop and another Blackburnian Warbler and then two superb male Scarlet Tanagers, one of which was orange-toned rather than red. As I was watching it, a tiny blur whizzed into my line of vision and then dropped like a stone. It took a second before I realised that it had been a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, my first ever hummer and quite a special feeling for an Old Worlder like me. I eventually saw it again, for about two seconds this time. A trip to the Neotropics is called for.
22 May 2006
This morning I had arranged to meet BF member Luke Tiller (a.k.a. Streatham) who had very kindly offered to come into New York from his home in Connecticut to meet me. Before he arrived I wandered aimlessly through the Ramble and for one reason or another ended up at Belvedere Castle, perhaps hoping for a repeat of Thursday’s Cape May Warbler. A bird caught my eye flying into a low tree and it turned out to be a Blue-headed Vireo, a really attractive bird and the vireo species I had most wanted to see before the trip. I met Luke and we wandered through the woods. Whilst Luke found it pretty quiet, there were plenty of interesting birds around for me, including Swainson’s Thrush, Wood Thrush, Veery, Common Yellowthroat, Wilson’s Warbler, Baltimore Oriole, Northern Waterthrush, Black-throated Blue Warbler, and that perhaps most numerous warbler trio Magnolia Warbler, American Redstart and Northern Parula. Amongst the more numerous Swainson's Thrushes we finally tracked down one with a greyish face but as both Gray-cheeked Thrush and Bicknell's Thrush migrate through the park it was all but impossible to determine which was which without hearing it sing (and I believe even then it's not glaringly obvious). Unfortunately, I had to leave but Luke's ears picked up my last lifer of the trip, a House Wren, and we watched it feed and sing in a pathside tree. That was my last birding action of an excellent first trip to the US. Birding New York City really appealed to me: you can watch 20 species of warbler before breakfast, spend the morning in the some of the greatest secondhand bookshops in the world and then laze the afternoon away in the cafés of Greenwich Village. It joins Singapore and Brisbane on my list of favourite birding cities.
Photo:
The trees are alive with the sound of warblers
15-22 May 2006
In mid-May I visited New York City with my wife for a week on a non-birding trip (my wife isn't remotely interested in birding but is more than happy to let me disappear for a couple of hours each day, as long as she isn't expected to come with me). However, I had cunningly contrived the timing of the trip to coincide with warbler migration through Central Park and as I never go anywhere without my binoculars I was looking forward to spending the early mornings in Central Park in search of warblers, vireos and tanagers. It was my first trip to North America and so there were numerous common American species that I was expecting to see for the first time. Like many European birders who have never crossed the Atlantic I have a "good superficial" knowledge of American birds, by which I mean that Sibley's field guide is regularly thumbed through at home, (most often in the autumn to brush up on the differences, say, between fall Bay-breasted and Blackpoll Warblers - just in case), and so I have a rough idea of what's there, but of course have little or no feeling for the birds in the field and no knowledge at all of local bird song. As I do 99% of my birding in Iceland I've seen numerous American wildfowl, wader and gull species and thirteen species of American passerine but I was still hoping to see 50 or so new species. In fact I recorded 111 species in all, of which 71 were new. New York City is an exceptional place for urban birding and as flights from Europe can be had relatively cheaply and there is accommodation to suit every price range it makes a superb destination for a short trip away. And when you're not birding there are just one or two things you can do in New York City.
Sites
I visited two main sites over the week, Central Park on four occasions early in the morning, and then the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge near JFK for half a day. There are numerous other sites, such as Prospect Park in Brooklyn, which attract plenty of local birders but I just didn't have the time. Visitors to New York should look at two excellent websites in particular, the NYC Bird Report www.nycbirdreport.com which proved invaluable in giving me an idea beforehand of what birds might be around in May, and secondly Phil Jeffrey's outstanding Central Park Birding http://www.philjeffrey.net/cpb_index.html which provides all the information you need as a first time birder to the park. Central Park is full of birders in May and the ones I spoke to were very helpful and friendly, particularly when they discovered that I was a birder visiting from Europe for the first time. I basically concentrated on the area called the Ramble but there are numerous other areas to investigate.
Daily log
15 May 2006
We arrived in New York early evening and the first bird seen at JFK was America's least favourite bird, European Starling. A crow flying over was my first new bird: it was all black, cawed and was in America and was therefore an American Crow, perhaps my least exciting lifer since seeing Spotless Starling in Spain. The only other birds seen on the way into Manhattan were Feral Pigeon, House Sparrow and American Herring Gull but to be honest I was too entranced by the Manhattan skyline to notice much else.
16 May 2006
I woke up early (still slave to Icelandic time) to torrential rain but walked the two blocks from the apartment to Washington Square Park to see if I could find any common birds. The dominant bird sounds in New York City are the ones that dominated my past in England (House Sparrow) and my present in Reykjavik (European Starling). In the park I quickly saw a new bird, Gray Catbird, which would prove to be abundant everywhere I went. I heard its supposedly cat-like call but found it a far less convincing feline sound than the unrelated Green Catbird and Spotted Catbird of eastern Australia, which really do meow and yowl (and cry like babies). Coming from the trees was a European Blackbird-like song, which although I'd never heard before I knew could only be an American Robin. Indeed there were plenty of them around and although common it was good to see this iconic American thrush for the first time. Hopping around the verges with the House Sparrows was a splendid White-throated Sparrow, and my first warbler of the trip was a female Common Yellowthroat which showed itself briefly on top of a bush before disappearing once more into the foliage. The final lifer of the wet morning session was an Ovenbird, whose jerky high-stepping gait was so distinctive that I hardly needed to lift my binoculars to identify another three birds later on in the park. The rest of the day was spent dodging rain showers and being overawed by Manhattan.
17 May 2006
This was my first proper birding session, up early to catch the subway to Central Park, seeing a Mourning Dove feeding by the roadside on the Avenue of the Americas on the way to the station. As I wasn't completely sure of which trains were local and which were express I got out at 59th Street (I wanted to go to 72nd Street ideally but suspected, wrongly, that the train didn't stop there). Looking up at the towering skyscrapers around Columbus Circle I soon saw a Red-tailed Hawk circling above, one of only two raptor species I saw on the trip. Although it was only 6:00 a.m. Central Park was already full of joggers and cyclists and I made a beeline to the Ramble area, on the way seeing dozens of American Robins (as common as our Redwings in summer in Iceland). A small group of brilliantly iridescent birds were Common Grackles, a real "junk" bird to the locals but a new bird for me. A startling song from a low branch was traced to a Baltimore Oriole, a bird I saw once on a windswept beach in Iceland but not in such stunning plumage. At the edge of the Ramble, just by Bow Bridge, I met the first local birders peering into the trees. I asked what they were looking at. "Not much," replied one, "just an American Redstart, Northern Parula, Magnolia Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler and a Warbling Vireo." Not much?! Here were five new birds in the same tree and although four proved to be common in Central Park, this was the only Warbling Vireo I saw. A sparrow began singing on the top of a nearby bush, a Song Sparrow, and two Chimney Swifts flew over the lake. Just as I was crossing the bridge a brilliant red caught my eye, a Northern Cardinal and just inches below it a Red-winged Blackbird, again two abundantly common local birds but very attractive to this first time visitor. Double-crested Cormorants dried their wings in the sun and a fly-by Great White Egret made this just about the most widespread species I've ever seen, from Australia to Iceland, from Kenya to the US. Once in the Ramble proper I was soon arrested by a warbler flitting around the lower branches of a pathside tree, a male Black-throated Blue Warbler, one of five warblers I'd seen previously in Iceland but not in this fabulous spring plumage. Next up was a Yellow Warbler and then my first male Common Yellowthroat. Gray Catbirds were everywhere and Magnolia Warblers, American Redstarts, Northern Parulas were numerous all morning. I then entered an area of denser undergrowth where I thought there might be thrushes. I soon saw two birds that I'd seen in adjacent gardens in Iceland last autumn, Swainson's Thrush and Hermit Thrush, and then a new Catharus, Veery. Living in Iceland means that identifying woodpeckers by their call is not really my forte but when one called near me I realised it must be one of four or five species and eventually tracked down a Downy Woodpecker. There were numerous groups of birders in the Ramble and whilst I didn't feel particularly inclined to tag along with them (or impose on them either) I was very grateful when I overheard one of the group leaders say as I was passing that he had found a male Chestnut-sided Warbler, a fabulous looking bird and one of my most wanted species before I came. I saw several more during the trip and never tired of them. A couple of Ovenbirds strutted through the leaf litter whilst in a wetter area I came across two Northern Waterthrushes. A passing birder alerted me to the song of a Red-eyed Vireo and I ended up seeing it well. I moved on to Strawberry Fields where I ran into friendly Brooklyn birder Stanley Greenberg who was kind enough to accompany me for the next hour or two. The next new bird was a small flock of noisy Cedar Waxwings. A bit further along the path we saw a male Wilson's Warbler and in a small stream a Spotted Sandpiper. We made our way slowly through the woods, and I stopped virtually every time we came across a Black-and-white Warbler, a particular favourite of mine, and then had good views of two Yellow-rumped Warblers. We arrived at a small clearing where the assembled birders gave me the frustrating news that my two most wanted birds, male Cape May and Blackburnian Warblers had just flown away but there was some recompense in very close views of a Red-bellied Woodpecker, my last lifer on a very satisfying first morning in Central Park.
18 May 2006
My Icelandic body clock meant that I was in Central Park before 6:00 a.m. but I was still not the first birder there. Magnolia Warblers were the first birds to greet me (it's amazing how quickly you get blasé about birds that were lifers less than 24 hours earlier) at Strawberry Fields. Rounding the corner I then encountered a birder who seemed strangely familiar to me. When he heard that I was the "Icelandic birder with the Cockney (sic) accent" who had been wandering the park yesterday (the bush telegraph is very efficient in Central Park) he greeted me with an Icelandic phrase he'd once learnt. The penny then dropped, the man in front of me was Chris Cooper who I had met in January at the Hippo Pools in Nairobi! I spent the next four hours in Chris’s company and his great knowledge of bird songs certainly found me a few birds that I would otherwise have missed. The first bird he picked up on by song was a male Indigo Bunting, which was elusive at first but eventually showed itself well. Then he got me onto a female Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Two Northern Flickers flicked in and ended up mating right in front of us. The next new warbler was a delightful male Canada Warbler and I was to see several of these over the following days. Back to yesterday’s thrush zone, we soon saw a singing Wood Thrush and a couple more poking through the leaf litter. Suddenly two sparrows on the flew up from the path and landed a bit further on. I quickly tried to conjure up what I’d crammed into my brain about New World sparrows before I came, knowing that Chris recognised them immediately and that he waiting for me to get it. Sparrow ID may not be rocket science but they are fairly confusing to a US virgin and all kinds of names were going through my head, and eventually Chris put me out of my misery. They were Swamp Sparrows and he went through the ID features. A tail-pumping warbler close by was a female Prairie Warbler, the only one I saw all trip, and then two male Blackpoll Warblers and a male Black-throated Green Warbler put in an appearance. At our next stop we found Chris’s bird of the day, or perhaps his bird of the week. We were alerted by a movement high in the treetops and what we initially expected to be a Scarlet Tanager actually turned out to be a Summer Tanager, a scarce migrant in the park and one I hadn’t expected to see at all. However, my favourite birds of the trip were just around the corner. Chris honed in on the sound of a singing Cape May Warbler and whilst searching for it my bins settled on a female Blackburnian Warbler. Soon though I was enjoying superb views of my number one target bird, a wonderful male Cape May Warbler. Naturally the female Blackburnian was a new bird but I really wanted to see a male, and I didn’t have to wait long as Chris heard one singing high in a tree and then a flash of orange materialised into a terrific male Blackburnian Warbler, one of the most attractive passerines you could ever hope to see. It got better as the reddest bird I’ve ever seen, a male Scarlet Tanager, joined us and just when I thought I couldn’t squeeze any more out of one tree a Yellow-billed Cuckoo flew in. Such is Central Park birding. One of the group which had gathered round to admire this trio then revealed that she’d just seen another much wanted warbler and after a five-minute search 100 metres away (stopping for a lifer Brown Thrasher en route) I was looking at an outrageously attractive male Bay-breasted Warbler and just for good measure a male Chestnut-sided Warbler came into view, the 19th warbler of a simply unforgettable morning – a real case of warblergasm. The last stop of the day was at Belvedere Castle where another tiger-like male Cape May Warbler was being very co-operative and singing at eye level, drawing quite a crowd, and it was time to head back to the subway, seeing my final new bird of the day by the Bow Bridge, an Eastern Kingbird.
20 May 2006
An early morning start saw me taking the A train for the 45-minute ride to Broad Channel, from where it’s a 15-minute walk to another of New York’s prime birding locations, the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. Leaving the station you head for the main street and turn right. It wasn’t long before I saw a bird that I always dream of finding in Iceland, a Willet, and its incredibly striking wing pattern won’t present much of an ID challenge if it does turn up. Some distant swallows turned out to be Barn Swallows and a few Tree Swallows (which later proved absolutely abundant and very tame in the area). A front garden in Broad Channel held a flock of House Sparrows and the first of several Brown-headed Cowbirds. When I arrived at Jamaica Bay the first bird to greet me in the car park was one that I was frankly surprised not to have seen yet in Central Park, a Northern Mockingbird. I first checked out the West Pond which is a 1.5 mile loop through woodlands and round a freshwater lake, with mudflats on one side. Although the woods didn't have the range of species of Central Park (being far less extensive) I was still at that stage of American birding that every rustle in the bushes, every sound from the undergrowth had the potential of being a new bird. A beautiful Eastern Towhee sang its presumably onomatopoeic song from a low tree, a persistent yet skulking singer revealed itself as a White-eyed Vireo and I was delighted when I followed a noisy bird down a side trail to have a Carolina Wren with a huge caterpillar in its bill appear fearlessly in front of me. Song Sparrows and Yellow Warblers were particularly common and once out of the wooded areas the proximity to extensive wetlands was betrayed by Forster's Terns, Laughing Gulls, Black-crowned Night Herons and Snowy Egrets regularly drifting over. A path led past Tree Swallow nest boxes, past Red-winged Blackbirds chasing Brown-headed Cowbirds, to a viewpoint over some exposed mudflats where familiar birds awaited, Red Knot, brightly plumaged Ruddy Turnstones, a single Dunlin and lots of Grey Plovers (a.k.a. Black-bellied Plovers in these parts). More exciting were single Tricolored and Little Blue Herons, a Short-billed Dowitcher and a large flock of Semipalmated Sandpipers, which the tide eventually pushed to within 10 metres of where I was sitting. The main lake now had a Black-crowned Night Heron and a Yellow-crowned Night Heron side by side and the large-tailed grackle by the water's edge was in fact a male Boat-tailed Grackle. There was a selection of common ducks (the American species which I hadn't seen before had long since migrated north), a group of enthusiastic teenage birders drew my attention to two Least Terns and a Common Tern on the beach, and here I saw my first American Oystercatchers, which resembled the familiar Eurasian Oystercatchers of home but have faded plumage as if they’ve done a few cycles in the washing machine. Another new wader, a small flock of Least Sandpipers, fed at very close range on the edge of the pond and three Lesser Yellowlegs and two Greater Yellowlegs turned up allowing close comparison. I'd been told that Fish Crows were pretty common at Jamaica Bay but unless you heard them they are virtually indistinguishable from American Crows, especially to someone with no experience of them at all. Virtually every crow I saw was either frustratingly silent or cawed American Crow style but just as I was leaving three birds flew over giving the diagnostic call of Fish Crow. The last new bird before leaving the West Pond was American Coot, three of them in fact, and it was time to check out the East Pond. This was rather quiet (both in birds and birders) but it was nice to see Ruddy Ducks in their natural habitat and an Osprey eating a fish on a stump was only the second raptor species I'd see all trip. Walking back to the station two downy chicks scuttled past me on an abandoned parking lot. I had an idea what they were immediately, but a few seconds later both parents appeared and confirmed my suspicions, Killdeer.
21 May 2006
This morning I decided to head further north in Central Park, getting out of the subway at 86th Street and walked north through the park past the Reservoir. One of the first birds which caught my eye was another hair-raisingly handsome male Blackburnian Warbler, and the usual warbler suspects were again conspicuous in the park, Black-and-white Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, American Redstart as well as my first female Cape May Warbler and two confiding male Bay-breasted Warblers. Whilst birders in this area were far scarcer than in the Ramble I soon tagged onto Central Park regular Jim Demes near a pool south of Great Hill (I'm sure this pool's called something but I can't remember). I was looking at a Spotted Sandpiper in the stream when Jim suddenly shouted, "Holy Crap, get over here, it's a Philadelphia Vireo!" And there indeed drinking from the stream was a Philadelphia Vireo, certainly the 'best' bird of the week in terms of local rarity, although this wasn't such an issue with me as nearly everything was new anyway. We moved towards Great Hill and in a dense area a smallish, neat sparrow perched briefly and disappeared. Jim's initial feeling on the brief glimpse was that it was a Lincoln's Sparrow and after a five minute search he was proved right and we had good views of it. Another stop and another Blackburnian Warbler and then two superb male Scarlet Tanagers, one of which was orange-toned rather than red. As I was watching it, a tiny blur whizzed into my line of vision and then dropped like a stone. It took a second before I realised that it had been a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, my first ever hummer and quite a special feeling for an Old Worlder like me. I eventually saw it again, for about two seconds this time. A trip to the Neotropics is called for.
22 May 2006
This morning I had arranged to meet BF member Luke Tiller (a.k.a. Streatham) who had very kindly offered to come into New York from his home in Connecticut to meet me. Before he arrived I wandered aimlessly through the Ramble and for one reason or another ended up at Belvedere Castle, perhaps hoping for a repeat of Thursday’s Cape May Warbler. A bird caught my eye flying into a low tree and it turned out to be a Blue-headed Vireo, a really attractive bird and the vireo species I had most wanted to see before the trip. I met Luke and we wandered through the woods. Whilst Luke found it pretty quiet, there were plenty of interesting birds around for me, including Swainson’s Thrush, Wood Thrush, Veery, Common Yellowthroat, Wilson’s Warbler, Baltimore Oriole, Northern Waterthrush, Black-throated Blue Warbler, and that perhaps most numerous warbler trio Magnolia Warbler, American Redstart and Northern Parula. Amongst the more numerous Swainson's Thrushes we finally tracked down one with a greyish face but as both Gray-cheeked Thrush and Bicknell's Thrush migrate through the park it was all but impossible to determine which was which without hearing it sing (and I believe even then it's not glaringly obvious). Unfortunately, I had to leave but Luke's ears picked up my last lifer of the trip, a House Wren, and we watched it feed and sing in a pathside tree. That was my last birding action of an excellent first trip to the US. Birding New York City really appealed to me: you can watch 20 species of warbler before breakfast, spend the morning in the some of the greatest secondhand bookshops in the world and then laze the afternoon away in the cafés of Greenwich Village. It joins Singapore and Brisbane on my list of favourite birding cities.
Photo:
The trees are alive with the sound of warblers
Shame that last day was a little quiet - I seemed to be jinxing every spot I went as far as migrating birds were concerned this spring!!!! 
