October 7 - Central Park - cooler temperatures; more fall arrivals

It was a pleasant, though cool morning for my Wednesday AMNH bird walk group. Unfortunately, we are now late enough into the fall that sun-up is at about the time of our 7:00 am start time. So when we have some clouds, as we did this morning, it is still relatively dim when we start. This is going to be more and more of a problem as the walks continue through the end of the month. Despite that we started off nicely with two male Wood Ducks on the far side of the Lake as seen from Hernshead. Lenore Swenson first spotted one bird which quickly swam under some low bushes along the shore. We kept watching for it to come back out when suddenly two birds took off and flew away. The dim light and the still thick leaf cover made for some frustrating birding, but in the end we saw 36 species over the two hours of the walk.

Canada Goose (2, the Lake)
Wood Duck (2 males, the Lake)
Mallard
Red-tailed Hawk (1)
American Kestrel (1)
Herring Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Ruby-throated Hummingbird (1, Maintenance Meadow)
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (several)
Downy Woodpecker (1, heard)
Northern Flicker
Eastern Wood-Pewee (1, near Upper Lobe)
Eastern Phoebe (several)
Blue Jay
White-breasted Nuthatch
Winter Wren (1, by Upper Lobe; first this fall)
Ruby-crowned Kinglet (several)
Swainson's Thrush
Hermit Thrush (several; first this fall)
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Brown Thrasher (1)
European Starling
Northern Parula (1)
Magnolia Warbler (1)
Blackpoll Warbler (2)
Yellow-rumped Warbler (2)
Eastern Towhee (1, male)
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Scarlet Tanager (1)
Northern Cardinal
Common Grackle
House Sparrow