birdspot

The top photo is a chipping sparrow. The bottom photo is a branch. Where the chipping sparrow was.

There are many pros and cons to an urban existence, there are many forms of entertainment to be sought in the park’s Ramble, and within one microcosm of life there are many different views on a proper birdwatching experience. There are often small irritations involved in identifying birds, especially in a public area. I am mostly bemused and tolerant of these, and generally find that there is a surprising amount of peace and quiet to be had. I love to think of myself as worldly and already-exposed to many subcultural quirks.

Yesterday, gentle readers, I was introduced to The Pisher of Central Park.

For a moment, let us revisit the art of the pish, just in case you have no idea what I am talking about. Pishing is a catchall term for the making of noises that attract birds to you, and is useful in some cases for drawing out a secretive individual or in bringing in a mob when you are in an area with widely-dispersed birds. It can involve pursing your lips and softly “spishing,” or can be a more aggressive, loud “Pshht!” Lip smacking, tongue clicking, or hand-kissing all fall into the same general idea. Taping is a cousin, but that involves electronic devices and prerecorded bird calls.

For a moment, let us avoid the obvious. Pishing is actively debated as to its merits and ethics. It is pretty straightforward that it has an effect on birds. All of the grey areas fall into how much, how loud, where (as in many cases, urban vs. rural), when (time of day, season), and for what purpose. Many people abhor it, many people use it with discrimination, and some people are just outta control.

There were a lot of birders skulking around the Ramble yesterday, and a Wednesday is a common day for group walks. Groups are pretty good at avoiding West Side Story encounters, for the most part. I was having a decent day, despite the numbers of people and the fact that it kept threatening to rain. The weather forecast had said a high of 68ºF. I had missed the part where someone tells you “not until 4pm; until then it will be 48ºF,” so I was a little cold, but I digress.

I was scouting some of the thicker tangles, chasing a shape that was probably a bird but that certainly had reminded me of an elusive Oporonis species of warbler. I was stock still, peripheral vision all electric and buzzing, with my eyes glued to a speck of movement in front of me, when I heard the LOUDEST pish I have ever heard. The effect on the understory was astonishing: robins flushed from everywhere, giving alarm calls, three blue jays swooped in and began scolding, and a flurry of smaller, more interesting birds flushed silently away into the realm of somewhere else. I jumped almost a mile, thinking someone was standing directly behind me. Within .75 seconds, all of my birds were gone.

Imagine my surprise when I realized the offender was, in fact, no where near me. Imagine my irritation when it became apparent that he did this incessantly. My jaw dropped open when I finally ran into him and realized he was leading a group and effectively teaching them that this was OK behavior. Now, finally, imagine my fury when this continued for about 4 hours. And yes, from an empirical standpoint, the birds outside of his periphery (namely, where I was, always trying to avoid him) flushed EVERY SINGLE TIME. Forget ethics, this is personal.

Of course, I don’t really mean to forget ethics. A nice rundown of codified behavior can be found at the American Bird Association site: http://www.aba.org/about/ethics.html

My bird list for the day, after the jump: (more…)

Yesterday was a 16-warbler day. This is very normal for a pretty good day during Spring bird migration. It is not a particularly amazing number (20 warbler species and up is rather nice), but there were good pockets of birds throughout the park, with some coveted FOY’s (First of Year’s) such as Prairie and Kentucky Warblers. Normal. A nice, normal day.

The morning dawned bright and beautiful, I was going to bird with Starr and Lenore & group, and was starting at the leisurely hour of 9 am. My train up the park was on time; I was eagerly and properly caffeinated.

The North Woods of Central Park do not have the best reputation for safety and comfort, but they are incredibly beautiful, and I like to bird with a group now and again so I can really scour the dirt paths and ravines that comprise the top end of the park. These trails often end at a man standing in the shadows, and are called “desire lines” or “love lines.” Other than this, it really does not feel like you are in the city, once you tune out the urban noises. You can’t even see buildings most of the time. Yesterday, however, Starr’s group must have numbered more than thirty people. Translated: many tiny birds + many birders of differing abilities = chaos. Oh, and the film guys were there too, filming the insanity.

By 9:15 a wild-eyed, wild grey-haired man had confronted the group and yelled about a 911 conspiracy involving the similarity of two phone numbers involving high and low levels of government involving the media. By 9:18 the soliloquy was over and birding began in earnest.

At about 10:30 we noticed a fair amount of smoke billowing from behind a small ridge and a couple of us ran over to investigate. “I’m sure it’s just a controlled burn,” I joked. What we found was a small brush fire, undoubtedly set by someone-smoking-something, that was moving through a good-sized area of black, smoldering leaf litter. We called 911 and film-guy Jed tried to stamp some of it out, losing leg hair in the process.

So as we listened to sirens moving away rather than towards us, along came a savior in the form of a crack-hyped, tight-t-shirted fellow who first became absorbed with watching the flames and then started jumping up and down yelling “Take some pretty pictures take some pretty pictures!” He poked at the leaves with a stick until I pointed out that he was only feeding the fire. At this point he became joyously fixated on stamping out the flames, and I left to help guide the firemen up the paths. When an entire truck’s worth of fire fighters finally reached the spot, crack guy had single-handedly extinguished a couple hundred square feet of fire.

And then I birded for a few more hours and made some calls while looking through binoculars and met a bunch of art people for dinner/drinks at the Harrison and then went to a premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival and walked down a red carpet and and sat behind an adult film star and went to their after-party and wore these shoes and watched minor celebrities and stayed up too late and if Swarovski wants to pay me I think that would be just fine and I’m totally wrecked today. The End.

A bird list from yesterday: (more…)

The weather yesterday was incredible, and Central Park was mobbed with people. I had to push through tourists at Strawberry Fields and fight my way over the Bow Bridge, but once in the wooded Ramble it was a little more manageable, and I looked for birds. It is amazing how much you can see there, even when the paths are crowded. There were two Black-crowned Night Herons sitting on the path at the Riviera, about twenty feet over a boat with two teenage boys who were pulling at the branches and trying to push each other overboard. I assumed the fracas would flush the herons, but this guy just opened one eye, looked down, scratched his cheek and let out a huge yawn.


There were sparrows and finches for all seasons: many of the winter birds are still here, and are temporarily joined by migrants and summer residents. The feeders are pretty maniacal right about now. There was proof positive that Juncos and Chipping Sparrows are not weird metamorphoses of the same specie because they were both present at the same time. There were a number of Swamp (top photo) and Song (bottom) Sparrows acting like feeder trash birds at both Evodia Field and Willow Rock. For sparrows: Eastern Towhee, Chipping, Fox, Song, Swamp, White-throated, and Dark-eyed Junco. For finches: Purple, House, Pine Siskin, and American Goldfinch.


And finally, I found a quiet spot where I followed a Ruby-crowned Kinglet around and amused myself with tangles for a while.