Thursday, April 12, 2007

Woodpecker news

I failed to see the red-headed woodpecker today or yesterday, and was beginning to think he'd left at last. But Lysiane Ribeiro, faithful reporter, just sent in a red-headed woodpecker thumbs up.see below] Unfortunately, I can't seem to post any recent pictures but you can see the bird if you look at the beautiful 2 cent stamp of it.

Hello again,

Well I am happy to report that I saw “Riverside Red” today. I looked for him yesterday with no luck and was kind of bummed out because I thought that he had left. By the time I got to Riverside it was too cloudy to get any good pics, so they will have to wait till after our upcoming “snow storm”.

Lysiane

He's still here

I failed to see the red-headed woodpecker today or yesterday, and was beginning to think he'd left at last. But Lysiane Ribeiro, faithful reporter, just sent in a red-headed woodpecker thumbs up.see below] Unfortunately, I can't seem to post any recent pictures but you can see the bird if you look at the beautiful 2 cent stamp of it.

Hello again,

Well I am happy to report that I saw “Riverside Red” today. I looked for him yesterday with no luck and was kind of bummed out because I thought that he had left. By the time I got to Riverside it was too cloudy to get any good pics, so they will have to wait till after our upcoming “snow storm”.

Lysiane

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Bruce's pheasant and warbler report

Yesterday I couldn't post Lysiane Ribeiro's photo of a Ring-necked Pheasant she ran into at Hernshead a few days ago. I tried to post it again a few minutes ago, with the same results. Shortly thereafter I saw that Bruce Yolton had posted a photo of the same pheasant on his blog Http://www.urbanhawks.blogs.com. Almost without hope I tried to upload the photo to this page. Effortlessly it appeared.

Anybody have any ideas?

In any event, glad to have photographic evidence of our flashy new visitor. Thanks, Bruce.

Warbler report: [stats thanks to New York City Bird Report -- http://www.NYCBirdreport.com]

So far, the only warbler sightings seem to be the Pine Warbler, seen since March 23 , and the Yellow-rumped warbler, seen on April 2.. The Pine Warbler is usually the first warbler arrival of Central Park.

Several expected warblers seem to be a bit late this year: the Louisiana Waterthrush, for one. Last year it arrived [or at least it was first seen] on March 17; in 2005 on April 4; in 2004 on April 5; in 2003 on March 23. I've heard a rumor of a La Waterthrush sighting about a week ago,[David Speiser?] but so far it is unconfirmed.

Another tardy warbler is the Palm Warbler.In 2006 it arrived on Mar. 31, in 2005 on April 5, in 2004 on March 28, in 2003 on March 25.

Since the weather has been unseasonably cold in New York City for the last few days, maybe the warblers are privy to weather forecasts far superior to ours, and thus have stayed put in warmer climes for an extra week or so.