November 8 - Inwood Hill Park - thousands of blackbirds

I went into Inwood Hill Park this morning to look for the Dickcissel reported there yesterday - I had no luck finding it, but I heard at the end of the day that it had been refound on the northern ballfields by the Hudson River, so perhaps tomorrow. What I did see this morning was a massive flight of Icterids (blackbirds). There was a steady stream of flocks of blackbirds going over, sometimes thousands at a time. They were mostly Common Grackles and Red-winged Blackbirds, but mixed in were Brown-headed Cowbirds and some Rusty Blackbirds. While James Knox, Danny Karlson, Nadir Sourigi and I watched the migrating flocks from the soccer fields this morning we also picked out a couple of Horned Larks going over - a new species for me for Inwood. Also going over were Turkey Vultures, Red-tailed Hawks, and American Kestrel. When I ran into James later in the morning when Ann and I were headed to the farmer's market, he told me they had also seen Red-shouldered and Broad-winged hawks after I left. There is still a good variety of sparrows around the soccer fields - in the morning I saw Savannah, Chipping, Field, Swamp, White-throated, Song, and Dark-eyed Junco.