Chilly Saturday in Prospect Park
I’ve been so busy with writing lately that I haven’t had a lot of time to bird. However, yesterday I took a couple of hours for a spin around Prospect Park. I felt like I was playing hooky, and that I should really be writing instead. (I’ve got a looming deadline for March 15.) Nothing too surprising, 30 species total including my first King’s County Common Merganser for the year:
- Pied-billed Grebe
- Great Blue Heron
- Canada Goose
- Mute Swan
- American Black Duck
- Mallard
- Northern Shoveler
- Common Merganser
- Ruddy Duck
- Red-tailed Hawk
- American Coot
- Ring-billed Gull
- Herring Gull
- Rock Pigeon
- Mourning Dove
- Red-bellied Woodpecker
- Downy Woodpecker
- Blue Jay
- Black-capped Chickadee
- Tufted Titmouse
- White-breasted Nuthatch
- European Starling
- Fox Sparrow
- Song Sparrow
- White-throated Sparrow
- Dark-eyed Junco
- Northern Cardinal
- Red-winged Blackbird
- American Goldfinch
- House Sparrow
I also relocated NA23, but did not find his three banded buddies. I’ve heard rumors that one of them was picked up by the police on Flatbush Ave. a couple of weeks ago. (I swear I am not making that up.)
I got home about 11:30 and was relaxed enough that I actually had a very productive afternoon, and made serious headway on both the book and the notes for SD 2007 West in March. I think I’m going to take another quick spin this morning and see if I can get my work done in the afternoon. So far my tally for the year is 37 species in Westchester County and 36 in King’s. I’ll see if I can add two more to push my King’s County list over Westchester today.
By the way, I’m using eBird to keep track of my sightings in various locations. It’s a lot of fun, especially for tracking lists in different counties, states, and areas.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:34 AM
Howdy. I found your post on Prospect Park birding while googling around trying to find some pictures of Fox Sparrows. I haven’t seen one in a while and generally have always thought them to be solitary, but Feb. 3 I was quite sure I had a group of at least four, possibly six, just along the north edge of the lake. These were all from the reddest of the subspecies, tidily red and gray. I’d be interested to know if you had a group as well and were / was yours also the red subsp.? Drop me an email or leave a message on my blog if you have a second. I also had the Common Merg. the first time I’ve had it in the 5 boroughs, I believe. See you in the park.