Central Park, Manhattan Island, New York USA
15 April 2006

Mid-April is still a little early for serious migration this far north in the Lower 48, but as the sun was forecast to be out after a night of showers you had to figure that Central Park - the rectangular oasis of green in the heart of Manhattan Island - would be playing host to at least some good birds…

I can never sleep properly in New York: the five hour time change is just enough to ensure that I’m mixed up enough to not be able to sleep until really late at night or to fall asleep just as most New Yorkers are making it home from the office and then wake up again at about 03:00a.m…like this morning…But on a clear morning in spring - and with the Park (and in fact New York as a whole) very much safer now than for many years I figured I may as well wander down and listen to the dawn chorus before the traffic started up and drowned everything out.

I’m glad I did: I can’t recognise everything I hear in the eastern US, but as soon as I reached the first trees at the entrance to the Park (by the famous ice-rink off 5th Avenue) I was picking out a few bird songs and calls I knew: the repetitive phrases of American Robins, the slightly apologetic descending song of White-throated Sparrows, the mechanical clicks and rattles of a Red-winged Blackbird, and the triple whistle of a couple of Tufted Titmouse. Oh, and rather too many sounds coming the imported trio of Feral Pigeons, House Sparrows and Starlings.

White-throated Sparrow Zonotrichia albicollis

Female American Robin Turdus migratorius

By the time I’d walked through to the Ramble (described - rather hopefully in my opinion - on signs in the Park as one of America’s best birding spots) with its bare rocks, tall trees, and shrubby undergrowth the light was good enough to use binoculars and it was apparent fairly quickly that whilst there were very few dendroica warblers around, some migrants had arrived. I only saw two Pine Warblers, two or three Palm Warblers, a frustratingly brief view of a waterthrush (probably a Northern), and a female Blue-grey Gnatcatcher in about six hours - but there were hundreds of White-throated Sparrows, good numbers of Hermit Thrush (I certainly saw more than ten) and Ruby-crowned Kinglet, and I saw at least three Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, a bird I often miss on passage.

Hermit Thrush Catharus guttatus

Early on, the expected residents and common breeders were active and showing well too: the three common woodpeckers for example - Downy, Red-bellied and Northern Flicker - were everywhere, as were Mourning Doves, and American Robins. First light is quite a special time in Central Park, and for anyone who’s not birded in the US before and is on a business trip or just beginning a holiday, it’s a great place to go: many of the resident birds are used to people, and will give excellent views and there are often good photographic opportunities for species like Blue Jays, Common Grackles, and Northern Cardinals as well as the woodpeckers and American sparrows already mentioned.

Male Downy Woodpecker Picoides pubescens

Male “yellow-shafted” Northern Flicker Colaptes auratus

Whilst the flood of warblers and rarities may have still been some time away (mid-May is the best time for passage in New York, New Jersey, Ontario, Illinois, Michigan etc), Central Park usually provides something a little unexpected and this time round I saw two herons here for the first time: a beautiful Yellow-crowned Night Heron (sat on a low branch down on the water’s edge that is normally very reliable for Black-crowned and which is found at Jamaica Bay about 20 miles away), and a Green Heron that came sailing up out of a stand of reeds like a large butterfly and landed on a bare branch in front of a startled group of birders before flying low over the main lake and out of view.

Adult Yellow-crowned Night Heron Nyctanassa violacea

Adult Green Heron Butorides virescens

Central Park - as with large city parks all over the world - is thought of as “green lungs” by those who live nearby, and unsurprisingly it soon began to fill up with New Yorkers looking for some “r and r” (and as it turned out about half a million children taking place in an ‘Easter Egg Hunt’ that seemed to consist of nothing more taxing than forming long queues with volunteers giving chocolate away at the end of them).

By about 10:00am it seemed like the whole of the city had descended on these few precious acres and the birds not unsurprisingly became a little more wary - especially as many of the notoriously dog-loving appartment-dwellers of New York were allowing their precious pooches free rein throughout the Park and any bird (or squirrel for that matter) with any common-sense at all had taken to the tallest branches or left the State for somewhere less disturbed.

Bethesda Terrace Fountain (foreground) and the Boathouse Restaurant (background)

It was good fun while it lasted though - especially as my 10,000 Birds colleague Mike and his wife/partner and “core-team” member Sara, their son Mason, his brother-in-law Seth of Cup O’ Books and wife Christine, all managed to fight their way through the swelling crowds and meet up with me within a few yards of a pair of actively-feeding Swamp Sparrows - a bird Mike and I had missed when we’d last met up in March at the Great Swamp Refuge in Newark (where - let’s face it - given its appelation you’d imagine we’d have managed to find at least one of the blighters).

Mike and Sara “doing their thing”…

In fact the meeting led to a ‘first’ perhaps more exciting than any of the birds that we recorded - this was the first ever time that three different hosts of “I and the Bird” had been in the same place at the same time. Really…take a look at the historic photo that Sara took left. From left to right, that’s quite clearly me, Mike, and Seth.

Perhaps it would have taken another bird-blogger to realise the true importance of such an event, because - strangely - the vast majority (actually, all) of those present in the Park seemed strangely unmoved…Hard to believe, but that’s the impression I got anyway…

Day List:
Double-crested Cormorant Phalacrocorax auritus 1-2; Great Egret Ardea alba 1; Green Heron Butorides virescens 1; Yellow-crowned Night Heron Nyctanassa violacea 1; Canada Goose Branta canadensis 3-4; Mallard Anas platyrhynchos 3-4; Ring-billed Gull Larus delawarensis 10+; Feral Pigeon Columba livia +; Mourning Dove Zenaida macroura 10-15; Belted Kingfisher Ceryle alcyon 1; Red-bellied Woodpecker Melanerpes carolinus 2-3; Yellow-bellied Sapsucker Sphyrapicus varius 3; Downy Woodpecker Picoides pubescens 2-3; Northern Flicker Colaptes auratus 2-3; Ruby-crowned Kinglet Regulus calendula c)10; Winter Wren Troglodytes troglodytes 2; Hermit Thrush Catharus guttatus c)10; American Robin Turdus migratorius c)30; Blue-grey Gnatcatcher Polioptila caerulea 1; Black-capped Chickadee Poecile atricapilla 2-3; Tufted Titmouse Baeolophus bicolor 4-5; White-breasted Nuthatch Sitta carolinensis 2; Blue Jay Cyanocitta cristata 4-5; Common Starling Sturnus vulgaris 30+; House Sparrow Passer domesticus 30+; House Finch Carpodacus mexicanus 5-8; American Goldfinch Carduelis tristis c)10; Pine Warbler Dendroica pinus 2; Palm Warbler Dendroica palmarum 2-3; Eastern Towhee Pipilo erythrophthalmus 2; Song Sparrow Melospiza melodia 3-4; Swamp Sparrow Melospiza georgiana 4-5; White-throated Sparrow Zonotrichia albicollis 100+; Northern Cardinal Cardinalis cardinalis 2-3; Red-winged Blackbird Agelaius phoeniceus c)10; Common Grackle Quiscalus quiscula 10+; Brown-headed Cowbird Molothrus ater 1