Spring Migration Commences
So far this is an exceptionally warm winter and the birds seem to have noticed. They’re coming north sooner than usual. A few American Robins spend the winter in Prospect Park; but in the last week, they’ve become a lot more common. I counted at least 33 in the Botanical Gardens alone today.
I also had the first Cedar Waxwing of Spring today, and Ed Crowne found our first Winter Wren. Next up are probably the blackbirds: Common Grackle and Red-winged Blackbird. The lake will probably pull in a few more waterfowl. Wood Duck, Ring-necked Duck, and all three mergansers could easily show up any given day. It’s surprising we haven’t seen any of them yet. March will see the shorebirds coming through, and then in April the warblers begin arriving.
Update: Just heard Alex Wilson had our first Ring-necked Duck on the lake today. This one’s unusually late. Normally we would have had it before now. It’s a winter bird for us, not a spring migrant. i.e. these ducks fly south to New York for the winter and then fly back north in the summer.
Wood Duck is normally a year round species; but we haven’t had any for the last few months for some reason. I hope they come back in time to breed. (Local movement of wood ducks is a big mystery around here.) The mergansers are just catch as catch can. They show up whenever one happens to be flying over and think the lake looks like a good place to rest for a day. Sometimes Hooded Mergansers will stick around for a few weeks, but we haven’t seen any yet this year. The other two mergansers are strictly occasional.
