Prospect Park is My Backyard

Every February the Cornell Lab of Ornithology organizes the ineptly named "Great Backyard Bird Count," and encourages all us citizen scientists to go out to count birds for at least 15 minutes anywhere we want--it doesn't have to be a backyard. List obsessed as I am I went to Prospect Park this morning and kept 2 running lists in my head--one for the total number of birds of each species I found and one with the largest count of birds of each species I saw at one time. So, while I saw about 220 Mallards altogether, for the GBBC I listed the 127 I saw sitting on the ice at the lake. The other were over by the Boathouse or else swimming farther along the lake shore.

I don't understand why they want the largest count. I suppose I could find out if I looked through their site long enough but I don't really care. If they're happy, I'm happy to make another list.

The 10 or so inches of snow in the park made walking around a slog. Virtually none of the paths had been shoveled or plowed. I forgot, as usual, to take the camera. The geese plodding across the ice were risible, and 100 or more them wandering around on the snow would have been a great high contrast photo.

With the big "blizzard" we had this week our birding opportunities have become limited. They only plow a small section of the path around the pond at Jamaica Bay, there's no guarantee the roads are clear at Jones Beach, Dead Horse Bay is probably inaccessible and anyplace in NJ, where they've had two "blizzards," is out of the question. I haven't been seeing many reports the last few days from anywhere. We were thinking of going back to Hunter Island at Orchard Beach this weekend, but after tromping around Prospect Park today, I told Shari we probably didn't want to re-enact Robert Scott's return from the South Pole just to see some chickadees and woodpeckers.

The "interesting" birds today were Fox Sparrows and a Hermit Thrush. I hate when someone asks me if I've seen any interesting birds because if I told them, "Yeah, I saw a Fox Sparrow and a Hermit Thrush," they wouldn't think it was interesting or know why I thought it was interesting. Usually I just say, "Nope."

(The first number is for GBBC, the second number for eBird.)

Prospect Park
Observation date:     2/12/10

Number of species:     33

Canada Goose     125/205

Mute Swan     6/6

Wood Duck     1/1

American Black Duck     2/3

Mallard     127/220

Northern Shoveler    16/26

Ruddy Duck     8/9

American Coot    5/8

Ring-billed Gull     325/325

Herring Gull     2/3

Great Black-backed Gull     1/1

Rock Pigeon     9/25

Mourning Dove    3/3

Red-bellied Woodpecker     1/1

Downy Woodpecker     1/3

Blue Jay     1/5

American Crow     1/1     Lake ice.

Black-capped Chickadee     2/4

Tufted Titmouse     1/1     Back of Upper Pool

White-breasted Nuthatch     2

Hermit Thrush     1/1     Hill by Maryland Monument.

American Robin     11/20

European Starling     2/4

Fox Sparrow     1/2     One at feeders, one on hill by Maryland          Monument

Song Sparrow     2/5

White-throated Sparrow     5/25

Dark-eyed Junco    9/12

Northern Cardinal     3/9

Red-winged Blackbird    2/3

Common Grackle     1/1

House Finch     2/3

American Goldfinch    3/3

House Sparrow     5/15