October 14 - Central Park

It was overcast and dim when I started out with the Tuesday AMNH Central Park bird walk group at 7 am. The ground was wet from overnight rain. The clouds overhead were starting to break up, so I thought we had probably seen the last of the rain for the day and by the time the walk ended at 9 am it was a lovely day, with a mostly blur sky. It was a relatively quiet morning, with a few highlights: Wood Ducks, a couple of Brown Creepers and a Purple Finch. Unfortunately, what would have been the best bird of the day eluded us. After we had passed Willow Rock by the Point, we heard about a Yellow-breasted Chat at Strawberry Fields. We hurried over, but the bird had disappeared by then and though some of us stayed until about 9:30, it did not show itself again. The full list follows.

Canada Goose
Wood Duck (2 on te Upper Lobe; 4 flying over Turtle Pond)
Gadwall (3, Turtle Pond)
Red-tailed Hawk (1, Maintenance Meadow)
Merlin (1, seen from the Belvedere)
Ring-billed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (near the feeders)
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Eastern Phoebe
Blue Jay
American Crow
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper (2, in the same tree north of Willow Rock)
Carolina Wren
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Brown Thrasher
European Starling
Cedar Waxwing (about a dozen near the park drive northeast of the Maintenance Meadow)
Black-throated Green Warbler (1, Strawberry Fields)
Eastern Towhee
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Common Grackle
Purple Finch (1, female, feeders)
House Finch (2, feeders, male and female)
House Sparrow