Prospect Park 4/11--Eastern Meadowlarks

Twitter ran me ragged today.

I subscribe to Peter Dorosh's Twitter feed (the only thing I use Twitter for). Whenever Peter has a report of a rare bird in Prospect Park, he tweets his followers. Usually I'm nowhere near the park and the tweet is just interesting. But today, while I was on the south side of the lake I got the message that a Yellow-throated Warbler was being seen on the Lullwater. That's a pretty good walk from where I was, but I walk fast. I got there in about 20 minutes and met Adam, who had reported the sighting, and Stanley in the woods. Typically, it had just flown north toward the Pagoda. We stood around for while hoping it might reappear, meanwhile watching the phoebes, yellow-rumps, chickadees, kinglets, nuthatches, and creepers flit around tree to tree. While we were standing on the hill I got another tweet from Peter about a Rusty Blackbird that was seen on the Esdale Bridge--again not where I was.

Eventually we walked over to the Binnen Pool/Pagoda area to look for the warbler. We didn't find it, but Adam did pick out a Northern Waterthrush, my FOY.

I decided to head over toward the Ravine to see if I could find the Rusty Blackbird. As I was walking over there I met Mary who had texted Peter about the bird. I told her about the waterthrush. As I was walking in the Ravine I met Peter who was on his lunch hour and told him about the waterthrush too. He hadn't had any luck finding the Rusty Blackbird. He went off in search of the waterthrush and I looked around the area in vain for the RUBL. I decided to go to the Vale and then head home. As I was walking there I got another tweet--now Peter had seen the Yellow-throated Warbler by the Pagoda, where I had just been not a 1/2 hour ago.  "Peter," I wailed aloud, "You're killing me."

I decided on a "Fool me once, fool me twice" approach and went into the Vale. I didn't have much time to look around because another tweet came in: Mary had Eastern Meadowlark on the ballfields--all the way on the other side of the park.

Okay, I figured, let's try this one--at least meadowlarks stand out in the open. I walked practically the length of Prospect Park and saw Peter and Mary standing in the outfield of one of the diamonds. (Peter has a little electric vehicle for his job in the park--gotta get me one of those.) Peter was waving me on. I put up my binoculars and found the meadowlark immediately. But wait--there were four meadowlarks in the grass. I stood with Peter and Mary for a few minutes watching the birds. A man walking his dog approached and we managed to get his attention before he flushed the birds. Another person came by and they flew a short distance to the outfield of a neighboring diamond and our group split up--Mary to try to find the Yellow-throated Warbler. I was sorely tempted but I was also damn tired.

What I noticed in the park today was that many of the birds seemed to gather nesting material. I saw robins, sparrows, starlings, all with grass, sticks, bits of cloth and ribbon, even bits of cotton stuffing in their beaks and the two titmice I saw behind the Upper Pool looked like they were setting up housekeeping in the hole of sawed off branch.

All in all a great day in the park--started off cool and misty and ended warm and sunny--but if I hadn't seen the meadowlarks my feelings about the day would probably have been more about cursing technology than anything else. But: Twitter works.

44 species on the day.
Canada Goose     41
Mute Swan     4
American Black Duck     1
Mallard     70
Northern Shoveler     18
Ruddy Duck     67
Double-crested Cormorant     8     Two on lake, six f/o
Black-crowned Night-Heron     3     Three Sisters
American Coot     6
Laughing Gull     1     Lake
Ring-billed Gull     55
Herring Gull     32
Rock Pigeon     5
Mourning Dove     11
Belted Kingfisher     1     Lullwater
Red-bellied Woodpecker     3
Downy Woodpecker     1
Northern Flicker     6
Eastern Phoebe     1
Blue Jay     13
American Crow     1
Tree Swallow     2
Barn Swallow     8
Black-capped Chickadee     9
Tufted Titmouse     2     Nesting? behind Upper Pool
White-breasted Nuthatch     1
Brown Creeper     4
Carolina Wren     2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet     2
American Robin     150
European Starling     60
Yellow-rumped Warbler     4
Pine Warbler     4
Northern Waterthrush     1     Behind Pagoda
Song Sparrow     3
Swamp Sparrow     1     Peninsula lake shore
White-throated Sparrow     3
Dark-eyed Junco     2     One Lullwater, one Vale
Northern Cardinal     10
Red-winged Blackbird     20
Eastern Meadowlark     4     Ballfields
Common Grackle     30
American Goldfinch     1     Male, Vale
House Sparrow     20