St. John the Divine nest is active again this year. I saw the two parents exchange nesting duties.
I was doing a sweep of northern Manhattan and St. John was the only positive of note on my tour. I came up empty at CCNY and J. Hood Wright Park, both of which have had their old nests removed. There have to be nest between St. John and Inwood Hill Park. Where are they?
One of the joys of birding in Central Park is that will all of the great birds, come great bird watchers who find rare things. Today’s great find was a Silver-haired Bat that must have been disturbed during the day and ended up sitting on a sawdust covered log in the Tupelo Meadow.
At first the bat looked like it might have died, with no sign of life. But as it got darker, the bat became more and more active, until it flew off into the dim light of dusk.
Randalls Island has had a nest in the lights of Field 10 just north of Icahn Stadium for a number of years. When there were Peregrine Falcons on the hospital, I think we skipped a year, but otherwise the pair has breed consistently over the last few years.
This year was no exception. The female was on the nest and in the warm sun left the eggs for a few minutes to take a stretch.
The Upper East Side female and her new mate have returned to the nest she used three years ago at 10oth and Third Avenue. (Many of you may remember her from her nest last year at 96th and Lexington, where she lost her mate and had a fledgling with frounce. They year before that, the pair tried to nest at 95th and Lexington.)
When they moved, two new apartment buildings were being built on Third Avenue. I wonder if now, with the construction long completed, the female felt comfortable returning to Third Avenue.
In the middle of the afternoon, I got to see the male of the 350 Central Park West nest give the female a nest a break from incubation duties. It was 45 seconds of excitement after an hour of watching the female sit on the nest!
Birding in other areas of the park made up for the hours wait. Spring migration is finally started and new species are arriving daily and general number are higher too. I had three new species for the year, Great Egret, Black-crowned Night-Heron and Golden-crowned Kinglet.
Good news since the last update.
We still need reports for some of the nests, and certainly are missing nest in upper Manhattan. So emails are welcome.
