Prospect Park 1/7

After doing my house-husbandly duties this morning, I took a quick jaunt around the Park. I went looking for a Northern Saw-whet Owl that I knew was there and saw it only because I ran into a birder who was looking at it with his scope. Not a life bird for me, but still a lot of fun to see.

However, I can't tell you where it is. It's bad enough I've told you the owl is in the park. Owl roosts, by general agreement among birders are not disseminated widely. It's like a club that you have to know someone who knows someone to get in. I knew this owl was there through some clever detective work on eBird and the Prospect Park sightings blog, but the chances of me actually finding it if the other birder hadn't been there were nil. The bird was very high up in a pine tree, obscured by branches. If you got just the right angle you could see the whole bird, but when I first scanned the area where I was told the bird was, I thought I was seeing a bunch of dead leaves. (Of course, had I thought about it for a few seconds, I would have realized that there are no dead leaves in a pine tree.)

So, you didn't hear it from me.

Prospect Park

Number of species:     31

Canada Goose     25

Mute Swan     5

American Black Duck     10

Mallard     125

Northern Shoveler     50

Ruddy Duck     4

Red-tailed Hawk     1

American Coot     6

Ring-billed Gull     1000

Herring Gull     10

Great Black-backed Gull     4

Rock Pigeon     15

Mourning Dove     2

Northern Saw-whet Owl     1

Red-bellied Woodpecker     1

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker     1

Downy Woodpecker     2

Blue Jay     3

American Crow     1

Black-capped Chickadee     4

Tufted Titmouse     2

Red-breasted Nuthatch     1

White-breasted Nuthatch     2

American Robin     3

Northern Mockingbird     2

European Starling     35

Song Sparrow     1

White-throated Sparrow     8

Northern Cardinal     5

American Goldfinch     5

House Sparrow     2