A Clay-colored Sparrow with multiple observers submitting confirmed photo-documented reports with photos archived at the Macaulay Library via eBird reports, refound on Wednesday, Oct. 22 was thus-far the only photographed and peer-review confirmed individual of that species known in Manhattan, in N.Y. City on that day, the continuing location at the Gansevoort peninsula in lower-west Manhattan as part of the Hudson River park and west of the greenway. This individual lower-west Manhattan Clay-colored was also photographed on the day prior and may well be a bird that lingered a while there. With such a good fall season for occurrences of Clay-colored Sparrows in the region - a species which has greatly expanded its former breeding range in the northeast in recent decades - it is possible that some further documented and confirmed sightings of the species will surface.
A good mix of native sparrow species were seen at the Gansevoort peninsula in addition to the documented Clay-colored Sparrow, including Lincolns Sparrow, as well as other species fairly-expected for the season. The lower, or southern, half of Manhattan has had a variety of lingering and slightly-late migrant birds showing in a very wide mix of locations from public parks, plazas, greenways, gardens, church yards, small plantings, courtyards, and more, just this week thru Wednesday.
As a contrast there are many locations suitable to migrants in the upper or northern half of Manhattan which receive relatively-little, or less attention due to fewer observers getting to and reporting from some of the sites available to the public in that large sector of Manhattan island. A small example of this is that I was in portions of Manhattan on the eastern side, from E. 96th Street to 207th Street along the East and Harlem rivers and as far west as along Fifth Ave, north of 96th St to its northern terminus, and while I found no -rare- birds in these locations on 10-22, there were a variety of migrants. Beyond a good assortment of such public parks as Highbridge, Sherman Creek and its closest habitats, occasionally too from Jackie Robinson Park in Manhattan - where I still have my only personal sighting of a wild White-tailed Deer in Manhattan - and still more-so Inwood Hill and Fort Tryon Parks with their many keen observers, there are relatively few public reports of migrant birds from a lot of this sector of Manhattan. This has been changing a bit over time, which is welcomed. I am also aware of the reports from some parks such as Marcus Garvey park in central Harlem, a site I first visited for birds in the mid-1980s, and the occasional reports from some of the leafy courtyards and other habitats in parts of many NYC public housing grounds, and more-rarely in some upper Manhattan greengarden spaces, and in some places, in recreational fields or parks. To some extent this comment might extend out to other boroughs, ie counties, of New York City, however the birder coverage in some sectors is also changing and increasing over time, a welcomed trend.
At Central Park on Wed., 10-22, a minimum of twelve Wood Ducks, twelve Green-winged Teals, and numbers of Ruddy Ducks, N. Shovelers, Gadwalls, some American Black Ducks, and other very common waterfowl were again present, as was a lingering Ruby-throated Hummingbird at the Shakespeare Garden of Central Park, that once again photographed with images in the Macaulay Library for Wednesday. At least one-dozen species of migratory American hemisphere warblers were still being seen in Central Park thru Wednesday, with Northern Waterthrushes and American Redstarts amongst these lingering warblers. The Queer Birders walk on Wednesday at Central Park had a celebratory finale for the location including Purple Finch sightings for this group. Multiple other not-for-profit guided bird walks were also held on October 22.
In all of Manhattan on Wednesday, at least 14 warbler species were still being found in the collective by many observers thru Wednesday.
Good birding,
Tom Fiore
manhattan
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