Central Park 12/13

Barred Owl

A funny thing happened on my way to the doctor's office: I met a friendly birder in Central Park. That may sound harsh, but it has been my experience both when I lived in Brooklyn and now that we've lived outside the city for 7 years, that the birders in Central Park tend to be snooty and cliquish. I birded Prospect Park extensively when I lived a few subway stops away and never felt that way about the PP birding community even before I became part of the clique. But the Central Park birders, for the most part, I was never able to warm up to. I wish I had had the foresight (and guts) to take a picture of one of the park's birders I ran into a few years ago, an older gentleman, wearing his Harris tweed hat, tweed sports coat and perfectly knotted bow tie, like one of the birders spoofed on the Beverly Hillbillies. 

But today I got lucky by meeting this fellow in the Shakespeare Garden. I got into the city with hours to spare before my appointment so the day wouldn't be a total waste since my appointments with this doctor tend to go this way:

Doctor: How do you feel?

Me: Fine

Doctor: Well, you look good, come back and see me in 4 months.

And that's fine with me but I like to be in a place at least as long as it takes me to get there and back. So I was in the garden, looking for the reported Barred Owl when Bill, the friendly birder, pointed out a male Eastern Towhee to me. I haven't seen a towhee in quite a while and though they're "half hardy" birds, they aren't very common around here in winter. I asked him about the owl but he told me another birder said that it wasn't in the pine trees where it had been. Nor was the Saw-whet Owl (which I didn't know about) in the holly tree. I wasn't really expecting to see the owl anyway, so I took the towhee as a little gift and walked into The Ramble. 

I was down by the feeders, happy to see a Black-capped Chickadee, when our paths crossed again. We were chatting when he got an alert that the Barred Owl (or, more precisely, a Barred Owl, there are apparently a multitude in the park) was being seen just north of the carousel. When he saw my hesitation (I easily get lost in CP, while I can find my way around in the Pine Barrens with little problem), he said "Let's go" and we headed south. 

We found the area(we hoped) and looked up into the trees, which wasn't so easy since a light snow with big flakes was falling, but we didn't see an owl. However, the Blue Jays were going nuts and we followed them to a tree where, high up, Bill spotted the owl. It turns out, surprising to me, that this is my first NY state Barred Owl. 

Then he said we weren't far from the pond where the Mandarin Duck was being seen. For the last month or so an obvious escapee Mandarin Duck has been the big attraction for photographers and non-birders in Central Park--the NY Times even wrote an article about it--but for a serious birder like me (i.e. a lister), it held little appeal. "Well, there's a Wood Duck there too," he said, and that was enough to convince to me go over there with him. We found the Woodie and then very quickly the Mandarin Duck swam out from under a the bridge we were standing on. It may not be countable, but it is a stunning duck. 

The uncountable Mandarin Duck

Cubist Mandarin Duck

We walked a bit more but he had to go while I had a couple of more hours before my appointment. I wended my way back up to The Ramble. I had heard about a Great Horned Owl near the Rustic Shelter and while I had a vague notion of where that might be, I was allowing myself a lot of time to find it. I stumbled upon it pretty quickly. Alas, no GHO was to be found there and I didn't see anyone else report it today. I had lunch at the boathouse and still had time to go back the feeders. It had stopped snowing by then and warmed up enough so that I didn't mind exposing my bare hands to take some photos of the more or less common birds to be found there. On my way out of The Ramble a Cooper's Hawk flew across the path and sat in a tree, not bothered by me taking photos. The birds in CP tend to be a lot tamer than those around here. And they tend to be in big flocks too, since they are all concentrated into a relatively small area. The ground beneath the feeders was so thick with White-throated Sparrows that they looked like a living rug. 

White-throated Sparrow

Cooper's Hawk

Common Grackle

24 species
Canada Goose 10
Wood Duck 1
Mallard 15
Rock Pigeon 10
Mourning Dove 2
American Coot 1
Cooper's Hawk 1
Barred Owl 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 10 All over and very vocal.
Downy Woodpecker 1 pecking at reed, as they will do in winter.
Blue Jay 20
American Crow 2
Black-capped Chickadee 1
Tufted Titmouse 25 Everywhere. This is probably a low number
Red-breasted Nuthatch 1 Heard near boathouse
White-breasted Nuthatch 2
American Robin 4
House Finch 1
American Goldfinch 2
White-throated Sparrow 100
Eastern Towhee 1
Common Grackle 50 Around feeders
Northern Cardinal 6
House Sparrow 100