Early April in the northern hemisphere (or more specifically, April in Central Park) is never quite as you imagine it. It’s neither as warm as you were sure it was going to be, nor as bright. Plants emerge more tentatively than you remember, the breeze is more cutting, the light is just a little flatter. And as for the birds: we wait all March for the first migrants to come back with the sun in their feathers, their lungs bursting with spring song, hurling colour and scattering brilliance across the tree-tops - but…but, we soon realise we’re going to have to wait a little longer, that the first pulse of warblers and thrushes is not the dam breaking but a trickle of weary scouts dribbling north, looking backwards over braced shoulders towards a sunnier south.

If only April - as much as we love it and crave it when we’re wondering yet again why we were born in a cold, grey land where the winter sun rises, waves feebly, then sinks again just as we’re warming up for the first time in months - lasted for only a week. Can you imagine how exciting it would be if the trees exploded with foliage in just seven days, if we woke up on April 1st to the roar of buds bursting like fireworks, to the deep whoosh of cold air being pushed out of the way, to fresh greenery rocketing out of the dark soil like comets flashing across a night sky? And if one swallow did indeed mean it was spring, if one Pine Warbler meant that there were thousands more ready to pour out of an azure, cloudless sky into the outstretched arms of leaf-covered trees, that the one lone Skylark singing somewhere far off presaged a chorus of sound that would fill the heavens just hours later…?

Imagine.

Oh well, back to the real world where early April is not quite the giddy sprint into May I always hope it will be. No doubt some readers will prefer the gentle unwinding of early spring - the subtle change in day-length, the slow unfurling of new growth, the advance guard of migrants which hint more and more openly at the charge to come - and they’re possibly right: there is much to still be admired of course. In North America the vibrancy of a spring-male American Robin, the glow of an American Goldfinch moulting into breeding plumage, Golden-crowned Kinglets flickering through the branches like tiny flames, should more than compensate for the lack of migrants - and seeing even one Pine Warbler, hearing the almost-apologetic songs of White-throated Sparrows as they tune up for later in the month when they need to compete with vireos and Wood Thrushes, should lighten the heart of even a birder as jaundiced as I seem to be in danger of becoming!

American Robin Turdus migratorius

American Goldfinch Carduelis tristis

Golden-crowned Kinglet Regulus satrapa

That’s not to say that this time of the year is entirely migrant-less. Careful searching will usually uncover some northern-bound traveller - a Hermit Thrush carefully picking its way along a damp trail, a Cooper’s Hawk hurtling overhead with a dangerous gleam in its piercing yellow eye, Eastern Phoebes fluttering like moths from tree to tree, a Sapsucker drilling rows of holes into branches flowing with spring sap.

Cooper’s Hawk Accipiter cooperii

Hermit Thrush Catharus guttatus

And because it’s Central Park - where there are nearly as many birdwatchers patrolling its meadows and rocky, rolling woods as joggers and dog-walkers cluttering up its paths and open spaces - there’s always a good chance that something unusual will be recorded: a newly found scarcity or a long-staying rarity whose presence is checked on and reported on an almost hourly basis. Into this latter category falls the practically now-resident Western Tanager, a bird first found on March 26th and which is still guarding the wells a sapsucker has drilled in two small pines, chirruping like a musical House Sparrow from nearby perches as it keeps an eye on its larder.

Western Tanager Piranga ludoviciana

One thing I have learnt on many visits to Central Park is not to give up too soon. There are so many nooks and crannies, so many changes in habitat over such a small area that there’s always something exciting or interesting around the next corner. I saw my one-and-only Worm-eating Warbler here one memorable spring, lurking under a bush, and on one visit many years ago I found a Nighthawk sleeping on a thin limb which hung over the path right by the Bow Bridge; on another I watched a Northern Flicker in ecstasy as it allowed a phalanx of angry Wood Ants to cleanse it of parasites with squirts of formic acid, and once marvelled at how a quiet morning’s birding in the middle of a city could suddenly be lit up by a tall tree packed with Blackburnian and Magnolia Warblers.

On this occasion? I was just thinking of starting the slog back to the hotel when I caught out of the corner of my eye two Cedar Waxwings flit across the path towards a patch of trees to my left. Nothing unusual in that, of course, but on catching them up I found that two were actually thirty, and that they were foraging on the ground almost at my feet, sorting out seeds from the decaying leaf-litter like sparrows rather than staying high out of reach in a berry-laden tree. It may well be that North American birders are used to such fantastic views of these silken passerines, but I’m most certainly not, and I spent a wonderful hour or so following these beautiful, streamlined birds, getting views that I will never forget - and photographs I’ll probably never get the chance to take again. For proof of that you’ll just have to come back when I’ve had an opportunity to put a post together, but in the meantime how about a few images just to hint at what I mean…?

Cedar Waxwing Bombycilla cedrorum

Day List:
Common Loon/Great Northern Diver Gavia immer 1; Double-crested Cormorant Phalacrocorax auritus 5-6; Black-crowned Night-heron Nycticorax nycticorax 4; Canada Goose Branta canadensis 3-4; Mallard Anas platyrhynchos 3-4; Bufflehead Bucephala albeola 1; Ring-billed Gull Larus delawarensis 10+; (American) Herring Gull Larus (argentatus) smithsonianus 4-5; Sharp-shinned Hawk Accipiter striatus 1; Cooper’s Hawk Accipiter cooperii 1; Red-tailed Hawk Buteo jamaicensis 1; American Coot Fulica americana 1; Feral Pigeon Columba livia +; Mourning Dove Zenaida macroura 3-4; Red-bellied Woodpecker Melanerpes carolinus 2-3; Yellow-bellied Sapsucker Sphyrapicus varius 1; Downy Woodpecker Picoides pubescens 2-3; Northern Flicker Colaptes auratus 1; Eastern Phoebe Sayornis phoebe 3; Golden-crowned Kinglet Regulus satrapa 3; Cedar Waxwing Bombycilla cedrorum c)30; Winter Wren Troglodytes troglodytes 2; Hermit Thrush Catharus guttatus c)10; American Robin Turdus migratorius 30+; Black-capped Chickadee Poecile atricapilla 7-10; Tufted Titmouse Baeolophus bicolor 10+; Red-breasted Nuthatch Sitta canadensis 1; White-breasted Nuthatch Sitta carolinensis 3-4; Brown Creeper Certhia americana 1; Blue Jay Cyanocitta cristata 4-5; American Goldfinch Carduelis tristis 3-4; Common Starling Sturnus vulgaris 30+; House Sparrow Passer domesticus 30+; American Goldfinch Carduelis tristis c)10; Pine Warbler Dendroica pinus 1; Western Tanager Piranga ludoviciana 1; Eastern Towhee Pipilo erythrophthalmus 1; Song Sparrow Melospiza melodia 3-4; White-throated Sparrow Zonotrichia albicollis 50+; Fox Sparrow Passerella iliaca 4-5; Northern Cardinal Cardinalis cardinalis 2-3; Common Grackle Quiscalus quiscula 10+