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June 5, 2003
May or May Not
It was, they say, the coldest May in a quarter century. It rained on seventeen of thirty one days, and it never once reached eighty degrees.But I loved every minute of it.
Well, maybe not every minute; the frequent drenchings were frustrating, and I’m certainly not happy about losing my job, but it was May, the height of Spring. It only comes once a year, and only so many in a lifetime.
Whatever its shortcomings, for me, the month wound up with one last wondrous day.
On Saturday, the thirty-first, I arrived at the Harlem Meer on the north edge of the Park at dawn. This despite having stayed out too late the previous evening. Drawn by reports of Black Skimmers and Nighthawks at dusk, I’d waited into the dark on the banks of Turtle Pond without seeing either. With Jupiter glowing, and Night-Herons croaking, I headed home, disappointed, but determined to make the most of May’s last day on the ‘morrow. The forecast was for yet more rain, lasting through the weekend, but it was expected to arrive later in the day, so there was hope for a final push of late migrants, hurrying north ahead of the front.
It takes an act of will and body to make it to the Park by 5:30AM, but birdwatching wisdom recommends it. That’s not to say it always pays off; often I’ve seen my best birds at mid-morning, but on this occasion I wanted the widest window possible before the day, the month, and the weather joined in mutual decline.
I would be glad I'd made the effort.
As soon as I reached the shore of the Meer I saw a long-winged bird in quickly shifting flight high over the water. It was the Nighthawk, sought last evening, but now a dawn-hawk, intersecting the first light of day. Though not as strictly nocturnal as the other nightjars, these wide-mouthed bug hunters are more often seen in failing light, whereas here I had good views; enough to make out the white throat and tail feathers that mark the male of the species.
At the end of the migration season one treasures every bird, especially the rarer ones. Not knowing whether this might be the highlight of the whole day, I studied the Nighthawk intently. Following it back and forth in the binocular, I moved along the shoreline, hardly paying attention to my steps. That’s a good way to bump into something, or someone, but apparently I was no less oblivious than the man who approached a little closer than I cared for, doffed his clothing without regard for my presence, and dove into the Meer for an early morning swim. There are some things you’ll only see on the edges of the day.
Naked humans were the least of my concerns. As I gazed up at the Nighthawk, I saw something else. Actually I saw lots of things. Many birds are typically moving about at dawn, mostly the common local ones, but now I saw long, shifting lines, high above the bounding nightjar. These were geese, but not our common Canada Geese; the shorter necks and unstable skeins, rather than steady V formations, marked them as Brant. They winter along our coasts, and I’d lately read a post on a birding mail-list remarking that they were lingering late this year, but apparently a good number had picked the last day of May to move north. First one big skein, then another, then another passed over, as well as several smaller groups. I managed to count about sixty birds in one of the small formations; there must have been upwards of a thousand all told.
Such a large movement is impressive to see, and gives a broader sense of scale to the idea of birding “in” the Park. Central Park sightings are considered to include any birds seen from the Park, even those, like the Brant, which do not actually touch down within its confines.
Another such bird is the Snowy Egret. The closely related Great Egret, a large white heron, is one of the Park’s most familiar and conspicuous birds. They can be seen from Spring through Autumn, stalking along most any body of water, catching fish with a quick thrust of their long necks. The Snowy Egret shares similar habitat and range, but for some reason is very rarely seen in the Park proper, though they regularly fly over on a well-established east/west “flyway” over the north end, used by herons and other waders traveling between roosting and feeding grounds at local wetlands. The Snowys can be told by their small size, if they are in the company of Greats, and, if the light is right, by their bright yellow feet.
Serious birdwatchers become adept at picking out flyover Snowys, thus adding a “good” bird to the day’s list, but on this day I was distracted from my goose-counting when I caught sight of a somehow “different” egret along the shore of the Meer, and then realized that there were not one, but two Snowys working through the vegetation, alongside a Great Egret for comparisons sake. I hadn’t seen them come in for a landing, as I’d been looking elsewhere. I don’t think they were there all along, but there they were now; the first I’d ever seen at close hand. One of them raised its crest, replete with breeding plumes, and chased the other, then flew off to the west, but the second bird stayed around, moving quickly through the shallow water with a peculiar high-stepping gait, exaggerated by its yellow “slippers”.
All this happened before 6:00AM. I was pretty well amazed. Certainly I’d forgotten about the nude swimmer. He was gone, along with the lines of Brant. I caught a last glimpse of the Nighthawk, higher up now, heading for some typically cryptic roosting spot, no doubt. A Spotted Sandpiper flashed by, issuing its high-pitched peet, while the locally nesting Orioles, Kingbirds, and Red-winged Blackbirds flitted about. I looked up into a Black Locust tree, laden with its spectacular hanging clusters of white flowers, and saw my namesake bird, Wilson’s Warbler, likely for the last time this Spring. I took a deep breath, then let it out.
It was all one could ask of a morning in May.
I spent over an hour at the Meer, never straying more than a hundred yards from where the greensward meets the cement of the city. I had no way of knowing what wonders might be occurring elsewhere, but one can only be in one place at a time, and if that’s where it’s happening, you’d better make the most of it. And even if most of these birds could be seen in a more “natural” setting, like the Jamaica Bay preserve, only a few miles away, that’s just not quite the same as seeing them in the middle of the mighty metropolis. I continued around the south shore of the little lake, adding Chestnut-sided Warbler, Blackpoll, Redstart, Common Yellowthroat, Northern Waterthrush, and a singing male Yellow Warbler, who’s incessant proclamation I could only concur with: sweet-sweet-sweet, sweeter-than-sweet.
Finally, I tore myself away, satisfied I’d seen as much as I could. The Sun was riding high now, though not for long. I wandered into the Wildflower Meadow, (just beginning to rise above the level of a lawn,) where I met Mike Freeman, proprietor of the NYC Bird Report website. I’ve been posting my observations there, where they become part of a communal day list for the Park. We looked for flycatchers and thrushes along the Loch and over the Great Hill, and watched Cedar Waxwings bathing at the Pool, before Mike sensibly departed as the clouds began to gather.
Rain started to fall, but not heavily enough to deter me. Not while there was still a sliver of May to cling to. I walked south in weather that would have flattered April, but hardly seemed to presage June. The Reservoir predictably contained none of the phalaropes lately reported along our coasts, but I did find a lingering Black-throated Blue Warbler, a singing male no less, buzzing his lazy song into the rain along the Bridle Path.
The rain wavered back and forth, threatening to become a downpour, then slackening again, but never quite reaching a sustained intensity strong enough to drive me from the Park. Even so, by late afternoon it was my concentration that was wavering, but a cursory pass through the Ramble led me to a fitting finish: a male Mourning Warbler in the willowy cove known as the Oven. The usually furtive bird, with his bruise-blue hood, obligingly popped up from the underbrush, as if to signal an end to the day, the month, and the season, all at once.
It would be easy to mourn the passing of the Spring, but we need not regret a work well accomplished, even if its progress has been obscured among the rain drops. To bring this point home, there was one last bird, though not in the Park. Heading home at last, I exited the subway at my usual stop in Queens and looking up espied one of my neighborhood Kestrels. The male of a local pair was keeping watch while his mate (as I have had occasion to observe) was hidden in the rusty recesses of a gutter along the eaves of an old church building where she tends her nest. For the last two years I’ve seen the fledgling falcons make their first flight from this spot just prior to the first day of Summer. So even as the riot of Spring and the frenzy of migration come to an end, my “backyard” breeders serve notice that June holds a promise of its own.