Less than a month

Photo by Cal Vornberger
"First Phoebe of the season" - March 17, 2006


The New York City Bird Report was a marvelous resource that, until recently, offered daily reports of bird activity in most of the city's parks. Many of Central Park's best birders mailed in their daily reports to the NYCBR and helped it keep up-to-the minute. Though it is no longer active [alas!] some of its material is still available on its website. For example, if you click on the link below, you will see a list of the 194 species of birds seen regularly [usually annually] in Central Park, as well as their expected dates of arrival and departure.

Please note the arrival date of the Eastern Phoebe, one of our earliest spring migrants. The NYCBR list says March 20. My own records have it arriving five days earlier, give or take a couple of days. In any event, that's only a month away!

http://www.nycbirdreport.com/sites/1/expyear.html