10,000 Birds in Central Park
By Charlie • October 20, 2007 • 4 commentsNo, not “There were at least 10000 birds in Central Park yesterday” (though here were hundreds of White-throated Sparrows), more of a “I was in New York yesterday, and had time to meet up with fellow 10,000 Birder Mike in Central Park”. We met up at the Bethesda Fountain just after eight (a film crew was there - genuinely - but apparently not there to film us sadly) and wandered round in temperatures and humidity more expected in Miami than this far north in mid-October. Very uncomfortable and very surprising. We only had until lunchtime as my flight home was in the afternoon, and I’m hoping Mike, who had to leave early as well to get ready to attend a evening gala, will do a decent write-up of our little excursion, because I’m back in the UK after said overnight flight and have had only one hour’s sleep. It shows: I’ve already made more typing mistakes in these few lines than I normally do over a whole post (how grateful am I that WordPress has a built-in spell checker?).
Anyway, rather than “Ramble” on (note the witty pun there?), I’m just going to post a few photos. The morning was unremittingly grey and I felt like the undead - but the birds were plentiful (even if not quite reaching the 10,000 mark), and we had reasonable views of species that would have had me in raptures if I’d seen any one of them on a morning’s birding in the UK: a couple of Ovenbirds, a beautiful Wood Thrush (and numerous Hermit Thrushes), Black and white and Black-throated Blue Warblers, three or four Palm Warblers, small groups of Chipping Sparrows wherever there were open lawns (plus a single Field Sparrow), and a very confiding immature Red-tailed Hawk perched on a low branch (which I found after Mike left). Nothing that would get the third member of our 10.000 Birds team, Corey, regretting his decision to go to Germany and risk missing a few birds for his NY state year-list, but I enjoyed it of course, which for the purposes of this post is all that matters…
Immature Red-tailed Hawk
Wood Thrush
Black and White Warbler
Ovenbird
Chipping Sparrow
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Still, I wish had been there. Instead, though, I was listening to robins singing and watching coots.
And I saw a Little Grebe!
Charlie, I think you said it all. Your photos are certainly better than the ones I walked away with!
Corey, don’t worry… a 10,000 Birds summit will happen as soon as all three of us are on the same continent at the same time.
So many great birds here and I just love your photos!
Some Great Birds! I like all the photos, but especially the Wood Thrush.-Whenever I try to get a picture of them, it’s either in bad lighting or they move just before I get a chance to get picture.