Birdy day

Today while CZ went to her classes, I went to Central Park's North End to look for warblers.  This time I saw lots of them in only an hour. Sometimes, when I go birding for hours and rarely see a migrant, I am tempted to think maybe I'm wasting my time. Shouldn't I be inside getting something done, or at least being sociable? But when I have a day like this, outside, listening to buzzy trills and seeing bright colors flit around, I remember what it is that I like about watching birds. It's an almost indefinable combination of beauty, detailed observation, and making educated guesses about where and when the birds will appear, but without really having control of the outcome.  

Before I make my list, I'll mention some highlights.  The most obvious one was a Scarlet Tanager.  In the spring, the males are a bright, tropical-looking red, with black wings.  This one popped out vividly against the green foliage, and seeming to realize it, he moved to the other side of the tree when he saw me.  Then he'd emerge into the open, spy me again, and repeat the retreat.  This went on for some time, so I really got to see him well.  

Magnolia Warblers were everywhere!  I've never seen so many that I stopped counting before, but that's what happened today.  And they were singing, too, which made them easy to find.  It's always interesting when you can watch a bird through binoculars while it's actually singing.  

I saw not one, but three Ovenbirds.  Ovenbirds are funny little brown warblers, like small thrushes with orange caps, that walk around on the ground near streams and logs.  When anyone in our family mentions an Ovenbird, one of the others of us inevitably comments, "Walks like a chicken."  You'd think we were eating frog legs, it's so predictable. 

I saw a 4" Winter Wren flush both a Robin and a Magnolia Warbler out of a clump of violets.  It must have been crowded in there!  Wrens are tiny, but fierce.  Even their song is feisty.

My favorite sighting of the day was a glimpse of gray-blue hood and white eye-ring, with some yellow underneath.  This fits the description of about three warblers, all pretty uncommon, but I only got one glimpse, and only of its head and neck.  So I stood there waiting to see if the bird would come out into the open again. It didn't show, but it did sing a few times, with a series of four ascending warbles and then four quick, quiet pips.  I heard it fly to another tree, repeat the song once, and then it disappeared altogether.

I did everything I could to memorize that song, through the sounds of other bird calls on the back through the park, during ten minutes I spent talking to a friend at the edge of the park, and through the usual panoply of Upper West Side noises as I walked home, including some loud salsa music with a sticky, repetitive tune.  When I got home, I checked Cornell's bird identification site, pulling up every warbler with a blue hood, to no avail--Connecticut, Mourning, and beyond all hope, McGillivray's? (No, of course not!) Then I remembered one more: The Nashville.  And there it was, a variation, but unmistakably the same song I'd heard.  

There were even some birds I couldn't identify today, which was fun.  Likely they were juveniles or females of migrating species.  These promise new challenges, and besides, they help me to imagine that there is still mysterious and uncharted territory ahead in birding.  

Not in taxonomic order:

Magnolia Warbler
Ovenbird
Parula
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Yellow Warbler
Common Yellowthroat (male and female)
Nashville Warbler
Black-and-White Warbler
Redstart (yellow)
Baltimore Oriole (juvenile)
Winter Wren
Hermit Thrush
Scarlet Tanager
Catbirds
Cardinals
Blue Jays
Robins


*Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons