Birds

Red-headed Woodpecker in Queens!

March 10, 2012 by Corey 6 Comments

As regular readers of 10,000 Birds already know, I am enamored of my Queens list. So when a Red-headed Woodpecker was reported on Thursday at St. John’s Cemetery by Daryl Cavallaro (who shared this picture with us awhile back) I was there first thing Friday morning. I searched for about an hour unsuccessfully before I had to give up the hunt in order to get to work. More precise directions were needed because St. John’s Cemetery was much bigger then I had expected!

Fortunately, Daryl was kind enough to let me know exactly where to look and this morning my search was much more successful. It only took me forty minutes to find the bird though it might be more accurate to say that the bird found me. I was getting frustrated when I looked up and there it was, in direct sunlight on a big tree not thirty feet away from me! Though it is a young bird just molting into adult plumage it was still a sight to behold!

Sadly, St. John’s Cemetery bans photography so I couldn’t break out my digiscoping rig, but I did surreptitiously sneak a shot through my binoculars with my iPhone. Please forgive the low quality.

Bird number 287 in Queens! Whoo-hoo!

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Written by Corey

Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.

6 Comments

Kirby Adams March 10, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Is it common for cemeteries to ban photography? I’d never heard of that.
Corey March 10, 2012 at 4:28 pm
@Kirby: It seemed weird to me too.
Patrick March 10, 2012 at 8:14 pm
Your Queens list is bigger than the cumulative Middlesex County list on ebird.
Donna March 11, 2012 at 12:21 am
St. John’s Cemetery is the resting place of a mob of NYC gangsters, including Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese, and John Giotti. Maybe they don’t want people photographing the stones? People get crazy about these mobsters.
Jochen March 12, 2012 at 4:27 am
I once got in trouble (mildly) in Ann Arbor for taking pictures of Ring-billed Gulls at the parking lot of a mall. Why a mall? What’s there to protect?