Central Park Report: 18-Aug-2007

DATE: Saturday, 18 August 2007 (3:45p-7:20p)
LOCATION: Central Park - reservoir & north end
REPORTED BY: Ben Cacace

It's easy to see Central Park is not a nature sanctuary. While counting the Mallards on the Meer I spotted one with a huge fishing lure lodged in its lower bill. Last week the same was seen with a Canada Goose.

While birding the Wildflower Sanctuary I was cursed out by a dog 'walker' who didn't want to hear what the rules had to say about his off leash dog - a beautiful Border Collie.

Sooner or later one of the Red-tailed Hawks will be killed by rodenticide use in the park. Many traps can be spotted in key locations. If anyone knows anything about using rodenticides in a raptor's territory please take a look at and let me know OFF LIST whether these baiting stations are legal.

Sorry for the rank but it's tough seeing these things going down without anything being done about it. I never see any rangers around when I'm out birding Central Park though they do seem to appear out of nowhere when a tripod is setup on one of the lawns. The police officers don't appear to enforce park rules. Rules are great but unfortunately it takes enforcement to make them stick.

I know fishing is 'legal' in Central Park but much harm is done from discarded fishing lures and fishing line. I think photographs of these incidents, seen by many park birders, should make a difference if shown to park officials. In my opinion there's no need to have catch and release fishing in Central Park.

** Total species - 31 **

[Categories based on the Central Park checklist.]

'Rare' (seen fewer than 10 times betw. 1970 & publ. of list) [1 spp]:
+ Blue-winged Teal - 1 female-type continues on the Meer

'Less Common' migrants [2 spp]:
+ Gadwall - At least 18 on 3 bodies of water: reservoir (6), Pool (3) & Meer (9+)
+ Spotted Sandpiper - 1 juvenile feeding on the grass on E edge of Meer - approached close to where I was standing

'Common' migrants [12 spp]:
- Double-crested Cormorant - At least 26 on the reservoir
- Chimney Swift - At least 15 sightings incl. a group of 8 over C.P.W. & 108th St.
- Northern Flicker - 1 heard
- Eastern Kingbird - Several seen and heard on North Meadow (3+)
- Barn Swallow - At least 8 sightings incl. 4 over North Meadow & 4 over the Meer (none seen around the reservoir)
- American Robin - Many (60+)
- Gray Catbird - 1 heard
- Yellow Warbler - 1 just W of the bridge leading to the Tennis Courts at N end of reservoir
- Black-and-white Warbler - 1 at the NE corner of the reservoir
- Common Yellowthroat - 1 female in the Wildflower Meadow
- Common Grackle - Several (3+)
- Baltimore Oriole - 2 heard

Year round residents [16 spp]:
- Canada Goose - At least 40 on the Meer
- Mallard - At least 120 on 2 bodies of water: Pool (30+) & Meer (90+)
- Red-tailed Hawk - 1 on the NE tower of the Beresford above C.P.W. between 81st/82nd St.
- Ring-billed Gull - At least 2 on the reservoir
- Herring Gull - At least 50 on the reservoir
- Great Black-backed Gull - At least 20 on the reservoir
- Rock Pigeon - Several (12+)
- Mourning Dove - At least 7 throughout the park
- Red-bellied Woodpecker - 1 heard
- Downy Woodpecker - Several heard and seen (4+)
- Blue Jay - Several heard and seen (3+)
- Tufted Titmouse - 1 over the Loch near the Wildflower Meadow
+ Northern Mockingbird - 1 display flying over the Meer
- European Starling - 1 around the reservoir
- Northern Cardinal - 1 male seen on the north side of the drive
- House Sparrow - Several (24+)

Adult Red-tailed Hawk in Pale Male's Space

Adult Red-tailed Hawk
CENTRAL PARK — 85TH St. & 5TH AVE.
Image by BEN CACACE
(Click image for a larger view)

Tonight this adult Red-tailed Hawk was spotted near the north edge of Pale Male's territory. It was just inside the 85th St. & 5th Ave. entrance. Blue Jays and Robins were making a racket.

It was fairly dark at the time of the photo — 18-Jul-2007 5:53pm EST, 1/25 sec @ f/3.7, ISO 400 (hand held & image stabilized). A tripod would have come in handy.

This hawk looks very similar to a hawk I photographed on 13-August-2006 on the west side of the tennis courts north of the reservoir in Central Park.

It resembles Pale Male superficially. The major differences are:

• chest color — Pale Male lacks this hawk's rufous tones
• belly-band — Pale Male's is less prominent & not as dense
• Pale Male's throat has significantly more contrast with the face

Take a look a this remarkable photo of Pale Male in flight from Lincoln Karim's site for comparison.

Central Park Reservoir: 5 Common Loons 18-Apr

Three of Five Common Loons CENTRAL PARK — RESERVOIR Image by B. Cacace (click either image for a wider view) 420mm | ISO: 200 | Shutter: 1/160s | Aperture: f/5.6

The number of Common Loons in breeding plumage on Central Park's reservoir has increased to five. All were seen on the surface simultaneously.

Two were feeding in close proximity to each other.

To read the full report of the birds seen in the park after work click here.

Document: History of 5th Ave. Red-tailed Hawks

Attached is the document ‘History of the Fifth Avenue Red-tailed Hawks as of 4/21/06’ produced by Jim Lewis and supplied to me by Marie Winn. I've uploaded the document to my site in order to make it available to the public.

Enjoy!

Bald Eagle on Reservoir 24-Feb-2007

Bald Eagle - juvenile
CENTRAL PARK — RESERVOIR
Image by BEN CACACE
(Click image for a wider view)

DATE: Saturday, 24 February 2007 (7:50a-2:20p)
LOCATION: Central Park - reservoir to south end of park
OBSERVERS: Omar Morales, Ben Cacace
REPORTED BY: Ben Cacace

Even though the reservoir was almost completely frozen over we decided to take a trip around the running track. The only open water on the reservoir continues around the 'fountain' in the SW quadrant. In this opening were ~50 Canada Geese, 6 American Coots & several Ring-billed Gulls. It's unfortunate I didn't make a count of the gulls.

As we made our way along the east side of the reservoir heading north I noticed all the gulls just lifted off the reservoir. I always look for raptors in the sky when this happens and this time we were rewarded with a juvenile Bald Eagle carrying one of the Ring-billed Gulls. The eagle started climbing a bit but then started settling into descending loops and finally landed out in the middle of the reservoir on the ice.

It was almost immediately joined by 3 crows waiting on scraps.

The eagle was not spotted arriving but was seen shortly after the gulls lifted and it already had the Ring-billed in its talons.

Also seen were 6 Red-tailed Hawks. Both sets of adults from the 5th Ave. nest and the Trump Parc nest. A hawk was seen north of the reservoir and on my way to the south end there was a juvenile RT feasting on a pigeon just east of the Falconer's statue.

The male Northern Pintail continues on The Pond at the south end of the park.

Photos of the Bald Eagle can be found on my blog at:

** Total species - 33 **

'Infrequent' migrants [1 spp]:
+ Northern Pintail - 1 male on The Pond at S end of park

'Less Common' migrants [3 spp]:
+ Bald Eagle - 1 juvenile (probable 1st year) on the reservoir's ice feeding on a Ring-billed Gull
+ Yellow-bellied Sapsucker - 1 heard near Chess & Checkers House
+ Fox Sparrow - 1 just N of Swedish Cottage W of Shakespeare Garden

'Common' migrants [13 spp]:
- American Black Duck - At least 6 incl. 4 on the lake plus 2 on The Pond
- Northern Shoveler - At least 12 on the lake
- Ruddy Duck - At least 3 on the lake (2f/1m)
- American Coot - 6 continue on the reservoir
- Northern Flicker - 2 incl. 1 female near Locust plus 1 male on Sheep Meadow
- White-breasted Nuthatch - At least 6 throughout the park
- American Robin - 2 in The Oven (Ramble)
- Eastern Towhee - 1 male around Strawberry Fields
- Song Sparrow - 1 on N edge of Turtle Pond
- White-throated Sparrow - Several dozen throughout the park (~100)
- Red-winged Blackbird - 2 adult males around Evodia Field feeders
- Common Grackle - At least 2 dozen (~24)
- American Goldfinch - At least 4 around Evodia Field feeders

Year round residents [16 spp]:
- Canada Goose - Approximately 50 in open water near the reservoir's fountain
- Mute Swan - 4: 2 on the lake plus 2 on The Pond
- Mallard - Approximately 100 on the lake plus 100 on The Pond
- Red-tailed Hawk - 6: 1 N of reservoir, 2 adults: 5th Ave nest, juv feeding near Falconer's statue, adults: S end nest
- Ring-billed Gull - Several dozen on the lake including several on the reservoir before the Bald Eagle arrived (~48)
- Rock Pigeon - Several dozen (~80)
- Mourning Dove - Several throughout the park (~6)
- Red-bellied Woodpecker - Several seen and heard (~4)
- Downy Woodpecker - Several seen and heard (~5)
- Blue Jay - Several throughout the park (~12)
- American Crow - 3 on the reservoir interacting with Bald Eagle while waiting for scraps
- Tufted Titmouse - At least a dozen throughout the park (~12)
- European Starling - At least 12 throughout the park
- Northern Cardinal - At least 4 in The Ramble
- House Finch - At least 2 dozen around Evodia Field feeders (~24)
- House Sparrow - At least 3 dozen (~36)

Central Park Reservoir: 16-Feb-2007

AMERICAN COOT
CENTRAL PARK — RESERVOIR
Images by BEN CACACE
(Click image for a larger view)

Last night I made my first trip to the reservoir after work seeing that sunset is starting to fit in with quitting time.

I arrived at 5:26pm, roughly 5 minutes before sunset. I left the reservoir a few minutes before 6pm. I didn't know what shape the reservoir would be in but I wasn't too surprised that the ice coverage is close to 100%.

The only sizeable open water exists just south and east of the ‘fountain’ near the reservoir's south edge. The waterfowl in this small open area has been filtered down to American Coots. These were the only ducks on the reservoir.

‘Birds of North America’ on-line says this about their flight:

“An extended period of Splattering along water’s surface required to become airborne …”

I wonder if this is the reason only coots remain on the reservoir.

Before leaving the reservoir a single White-throated Sparrow landed in a leafless bush. It called for a time while it was looking for a place to rest. It finally perched on the downwind side of a branch and appeared to be settled in for the night.

Before exiting the park at 81st St. & Central Park West a Red-tailed Hawk was seen roosting on the window frame of the Beresford Building's south-east tower. With westerly winds this appeared to be a very comfortable east facing perch.

Central Park: Pied-billed Grebe 3-Feb-2007

Pied-billed Grebe — adult plumage
CENTRAL PARK — RESERVOIR
Image by BEN CACACE
(Click image for a larger view)

This Pied-billed Grebe is possibly the same bird that appeared on the reservoir for the 2006/2007 ‘winter season’ the day I was out birding with Omar Morales on 30-Sep-2007. It arrived in juvenile plumage and has recently begun to acquire its adult plumage as noted by Jack Meyer in a recent post to eBirds NYC.

Here's a link to a photo by Cal Vornberger taken of the juvenile on the reservoir on 11-Dec-2006.

Scroll down a bit at the following link to see a photo from 9-Dec-2007 taken by Bruce Yolton.

Central Park Reservoir: Brant 28-Jan-2007

Flock of Brant (Branta bernicla)
CENTRAL PARK — RESERVOIR
Images by BEN CACACE
(Click images for a larger view)

A flock of 22 Brant landed on the reservoir around 8:30a on Sunday 28-Jan-2007. The flock left by 8:50a.

Scaup Identification Question

Scaup species — female
Central Park — Reservoir
Images by BEN CACACE

This scaup was on the reservoir this morning (Sun, 28 Jan 2007) briefly from at least 9:30a when I saw it after circling the reservoir. I left the area around 9:45a. The bird was not seen again by other birders I mentioned the sighting to.

Are there enough details in the two photos to ID this as Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis)? The images are cropped from the original without any additional compression other than the normal JPEG compression.

Thanks in advance and feel free to comment here or via email. See contact information in left sidebar.

Central Park: Looking South 9-Nov

Southern View from TotL (detail)
Central Park South from the Great Lawn, New York City
Image by BEN CACACE

Click the picture above for a wide-angle view of Central Park South taken from our observing site.

The image is from the ‘Top of the Lawn’ where we do most of our Central Park observing. It was taken shortly before Charlie arrived and was inspired by the handheld panorama he took of the same scene.

Fomalhaut, the brightest star in the constellation Piscis Austrinus (Southern Fish), is visible in the photo in the extreme upper left hand corner. The view is looking south southwest down the spine of Manhattan. The center of the photo is roughly 210 degrees in azimuth.

The left edge of the image is just east of 180 degrees and the right is close to 240 degrees making the width of the image nearly 60 degrees.

The photo was taken at 7:49pm EST on the 9th of November. The exposure was 6 seconds at f/2.8. The focal length in 35mm equivalent was 38mm. The camera used is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30.

At the time of the photo Fomalhaut was at azimuth 182.6 degrees and 19.6 degrees above the horizon. The brightest building in the center of the skyline is ‘30 Rockefeller Center’ home of ‘Saturday Night Live’ and is also known as the ‘G.E. Building’.

The star in the upper left corner, Fomalhaut (magnitude 1.2 — alpha Pisces Austrini), is in the Southern Fish constellation. When I look closely at the original 5.3 megapixel image I can see stars down to mag. 5.9 in the area around Fomalhaut including delta (m4.2), gamma (m4.5) & epsilon (4.2) Piscis Austrini plus the 5.9 mag star HIP 114366 (not shown).

The image above is a slightly compressed from the original showing the stars visible around Fomalhaut. The wide-angle view is one third the size of the original.

Central Park: 1st Night Observing 9-Nov

The astronomy season has just begun! At soon as ‘Daylight Saving Time’ ends my ability to go birding after work ends with it.

The astronomy season seems to naturally kick in as ‘Cheshire Cat’ starts rising face up. Central Park is where I do most of my observing and this is where I wound up on Thursday night.

All of ‘team’ TotL eventually showed up at the top of the lawn. I arrived a bit early at 7:30p followed by Charlie, Peter and then Kin. We were fortunate enough to have clear skies for the whole time. The air was a bit damp but not too saturated. The objects sitting out in the open didn't moisten up too badly. On a bad night an unpacked book will start to look like a sponge.

A number of objects were observed over the course of the evening. One of the first was an asteroid Charlie picked up with his tripod mounted 15x50 Canon IS binoculars. I didn't draw the field but did display the object and surrounding stars on the PDA program ‘Planetarium’. An almost straight line was formed by two lower stars (HIP 15552 & HIP 15380) along with a dimmer star (HIP 15181) just above the asteroid. Iris was bright at mag. 6.9 and I will definitely check it out next time in the Televue-76. The time of the observation was around 9pm.

I get a kick out of spotting and confirming minor planets. I've spotted 6 asteroids to date. There's a write-up of the sightings on my blog which doesn't yet include 7 Iris if you have the energy after finishing this post.

A couple from New Zealand were walking their dog and stopped by to talk and to take in the views. They enjoyed the three standard showpieces of the night. The Double Cluster in Perseus, the Pleiades and the Moon.

At the time Peter was observing a distant open cluster in the Tak-102. I didn't note down which one he had but the New Zealander's noted the hazy appearance of the grouping. It was a nice view in the 4" refractor.

I didn't catch their names but the woman had just run the N.Y.C. Marathon. This was the reason the came to the U.S. but I was surprised to see they were walking a dog. Was it their dog? No! Dog sitting was part of the deal of renting the apartment. Luckily it was a good one. The dog didn't treat our equipment roughly. We're pretty strict about dogs raising their legs near the gear.

Tammy with the lights in her hair stopped by shortly after and stayed around for a bit. She arrived via bicycle and had passed team TotL many times in the past but never stopped to take a peek through the optics. She thoroughly enjoyed the views of the standard three and she and Peter got to witness the lone meteor of the night moving away from M45 heading northward.

I noticed that the heat from the lights in Tammy's hair created a warm cloud of aroma that engulfed Peter. All I could remember after this encounter was that he kept talking about mountains and flowers. Go figure! ;-D

During the flowers and mountains discussion I was deep into a locating a multiple star in Auriga. I made nice use of a black towel that's used to protect the Televue-76. The towel blocked out the surrounding lights and also allowed me to keep my left eye open while viewing with the right one. This was a tremendous help.

The star in question was omega Aurigae A.K.A. 4 Aurigae or STF 616. Locating it was easy enough since it is close to the short side of The Kids in Auriga. A 21 arc minute wide double points the way to 4 Aur which is the apex of a 2° long isosceles triangle. See the chart for a quick star hop to omega Aurigae.

I spent quite some time on the surrounding field to test how deep I could see with the 22mm Nagler Type IV versus the 12mm Nagler Type IV. After spending a few minutes viewing with both eyepieces I was able to see stars down to mag. 9.9 with the 22mm NT4 at 22x. With the 12mm NT4 at 40x stars to mag. 10.8 were visible.

While studying the star field I noticed a group of people gathering around. The double star field couldn't be that exciting for first timers so I interrupted the session to show the Moon to a group of four young girls. The got a kick out of the views of the nearly 19 day old Moon.

After this I returned to omega Aurigae and viewed it with at 80x with the 6mm Radian. The dimmer secondary was sitting practically on the lone diffraction ring created by the primary. The dimmer star appeared blue to me and Peter mentioned the same. I've read that some see the secondary as red but this wasn't apparent in the TV-76 at 80x. I'm sure we'll get to see this star in the Tak-102 in the future. The separation is 4.7 arc seconds (WDS 2004) and the magnitudes are 5.0 and 8.2.

Overall it was a satisfying night out with a great group of amateur astronomers at the top of the lawn. Sharing conversation and views with the public is a highly recommended way to spend a Fall evening.

Central Park: Northern Pintail 17-Sep

Northern Pintail
Central Park — Turtle Pond
Image by BEN CACACE
(Click image for detail)

Image taken on September 17th at 5:42pm EDT. Focal length in 35mm film equivalent is 420mm, exposure time is 1/80s, hand held with image stabilization at f/2.8.