April 22: Six new apartment year birds in three days. [NOTE: late additions got that to eight]

It has been a very good several days for my apartment year list. On Sunday, April 20 I added three species to the list. The first was a singing Northern House Wren early in the morning. This was followed a few hours later by a female Eastern Towhee that Hilary Russ pointed out in a sapling just off the ramp going down into the Columbia Muscota area. Finally, around midday just as Ann and I were about to leave Easter with my family in Brooklyn Allen and Karina Greene texted. A Northern Pintail was swimming on the northern side of the channel by the big “C”. This was probably the individual that has been seen periodically in the main inlet over the last two months. I was delighted to add it to my apartment year list since it was the only waterfowl species reported in the park this winter away from the Hudson that I hadn’t seen from the apartment.

I didn’t add anything to the list on Monday, April 21, but today was a great day. In the morning I saw a Spotted Sandpiper as it disappeared flying around the point going west. Soon after there was a Ruby-crowned Kinglet across Indian Road from my living room window. Finally, in the afternoon I saw five vultures circling over the Henry Hudson Bridge. Four of them were Turkey Vultures, but the fifth was a Black Vulture! These six species brought my apartment year list to 73 [see below]. The full list is here.

Besides adding three species to my apartment year list it was a very good day overall with 35 species seen from the apartment. Certainly my best day this year, perhaps my best day ever. These 35 do not include an adult Bald Eagle chasing an Osprey that Hilary and I saw in the late morning from down in the Muscota area.

Just as I finished typing this post Allen and Karina texted there was a Chipping Sparrow on the lawn in the park just in from the 218th Street entrance. When I looked out the window Allen and Karina were standing on the park road pointing and I was easily able to spot the Chipping. A few minutes later they texted there were a couple of Chimney Swifts flying overhead and vocalizing. This was a species I knew I was going to get any day now, but it was nice to add it to the list. This brings the total to 75 species.

Thank you Allen and Karina!

April 18: Two new year birds for the apartment. ADDENDUM: April 19

It was a good morning with two new species for my apartment year list this morning. First, Allen and Karina Greene reported they had a Savannah Sparrow on the lawn in Inwood going into the park from 218th Street. After scanning a bit with my scope, I spotted the bird for #65. It was great when about 45 minutes later it or another Savannah popped up in the tree across Indian Road from my living room window. In the meantime, I heard a White-breasted Nuthatch calling from the trees going into the park for #66 for the year. The full list for the year is here.

ADDENDUM: On April 19 I saw two Northern Rough-winged Swallows over the channel north of Muscota for #67.

April 12: New bird for 2025 apartment year list. ADDENDUM: April 13

Today I picked up a new bird for my apartment year list - Hermit Thrush. It is #63 for the year. I have added a page (here) where I will keep an updated list of my 2025 apartment birds.

On April 13 I spotted another year bird for the apartment - a Yellow-rumped Warbler for #64 for the year.

Apartment Year List Through April 7, 2025: ADDENDUM 04/08/2025

Back in January with some severe cold weather predicted I expected we were going to have a good variety of waterfowl in Inwood Hill Park. I was not disappointed. Since January 1st, sixteen species of waterfowl have been reported in the park. I have seen fourteen species from my apartment (see list below). The only other species I have heard of were Northern Pintail on the main inlet and Long-tailed Duck on the Hudson. The variety of waterfowl inspired me to work on an apartment year list. My all time apartment list is 126 species (Here). As of April 7 my apartment 2025 year list is 61 species (below). I cannot take sole credit for the list. I have benefited from other local Inwood birders finding and reporting species which alerted me to their presence and I was then able to see them from my apartment. I particularly want to acknowledge Allen and Karina Greene, Danny Karlson, Hilary Russ, Diane Schenker, and Elizabeth White-Pultz.

ADDENDUM: On the morning of 04/08 I added Merlin. Apartment year list is now 62.

It is going to be interesting to see how high I can get the list over the course of the year.

Canada Goose

Mute Swan

Wood Duck

Gadwall

American Wigeon

Mallard

American Black Duck

Canvasback

Lesser Scaup

Bufflehead

Common Goldeneye

Hooded Merganser

Common Merganser

Red-breasted Merganser

Rock Pigeon

Mourning Dove

Greater Yellowlegs

Ring-billed Gull

American Herring Gull

Great Black-backed Gull

Pied-billed Grebe

Horned Grebe

Double-crested Cormorant

Black-crowned Night Heron

Great Egret

Great Blue Heron

Turkey Vulture

Osprey

Cooper's Hawk

Bald Eagle

Red-tailed Hawk

Belted Kingfisher

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Downy Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

American Kestrel Merlin

Peregrine Falcon

Eastern Phoebe

Blue Jay

American Crow

Fish Crow

Common Raven

Black-capped Chickadee

Tufted Titmouse

Carolina Wren

European Starling

Northern Mockingbird

American Robin

Cedar Waxwing

House Sparrow

House Finch

American Goldfinch

American Tree Sparrow

Dark-eyed Junco

White-throated Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Swamp Sparrow

Red-winged Blackbird

Brown-headed Cowbird

Common Grackle

Northern Cardinal

 

New mammal for my Inwood Hill Park list: Woodchuck

 On March 31, Diane Schenker texted she had a Woodchuck in Muscota. I was able to see it from my apartment window so I added to both my Inwood Hill Park list and apartment list. Yesterday, Danny Karlson and Junko Suzuki let me know it was in Muscota again. Below my window it was happily eating grass and other plants.

Woodchuck - April 6, 2025

It is not unusual to see Woodchucks in the outer boroughs or outside the city, but it is fairly rare to encounter one on the island of Manhattan.

Helen Hays: January 22, 1931 - February 5, 2025

I will post more about my friend and mentor in the future. For now I will post the following.

        How do you say goodbye to a person you have known for over fifty years. Especially when that person is someone like Helen. A person who was responsible for the life you have had. I know that Ann understands. Ann and I have been together for over forty years, but we would not have met if not for Helen. In fact, many of my closest friends were met because of Helen. To say that Helen was unique, and a force of nature is a cliché and certainly does not do her justice. Helen, through her own love of nature and birds in particular, literally helped change the world around her. Through her work on Great Gull Island and the students she inspired she left a legacy that cannot be measured and that will go on for generations. The day she died I started sending the sad news out. Within twelve hours tributes to her were being posted on multiple continents. Helen herself had visited every continent except Africa as well as islands in the Pacific. Like her beloved terns she was a traveler. I was lucky enough to travel with her to South America many times where we encountered some of the very same individual terns we had banded on Great Gull Island. As everywhere she went, she inspired people in South America to study and protect her terns. Of course, the Common and Roseate terns were not her only love. Before the terns she studied Ruddy Ducks in Manitoba and did ground-breaking work on the Spotted Sandpipers on Great Gull Island. She loved field work. When she wasn’t in the field she loved the theater, music and opera; all of which she enjoyed sharing with her friends.

        I still haven’t answered my original question about how to say goodbye to Helen. It is because I still don’t know how. There are too many memories. They give some comfort, and I take joy in looking back at the incredible and wonderful life she led and having some knowledge of the many other lives besides mine that she touched. So no, I don’t know how to say goodbye, other than to say: “Helen, I will miss you.”

March 10, 2025: A Book Recommendation - Taking Manhattan by Russell Shorto

This is a departure from natural history, but I want to highly recommend a just published book: Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America by Russell Shorto (W. W. Norton & Co.). It is a sequel to the same author’s classic book The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America (2004, Doubleday). Shorto’s earlier book recounted the history of New Amsterdam and how many of the American ideals of religious freedom and pluralism that are often attributed to the English colonies were actually passed on to the American colonies from the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. In his new book, Shorto recounts the events of the late summer of 1664 when England sent a flotilla under command of Richard Nicolls to take control of New Amsterdam away from the Netherlands and add it to the growing British Empire. Instead of the military confrontation that both sides expected Nicolls and the Dutch leader of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, negotiated a peaceful transfer of power from the Dutch to the English. Nicolls renamed the town at the southern tip of Manhattan New York and became the colonies first English governor. Shorto describes the peaceful transition as a merger rather than a military takeover. He guaranteed the population the rights and freedoms they had been used to under the Dutch and gave rise to modern New York city and many of the freedoms of the future United States.

February 19, 2025: Common Goldeneye - new species for my Inwood Hill Park list and my apartment list.

This morning I spotted two female type Common Goldeneyes in the channel off Muscota. It was a freezing cold morning with temperatures in the upper teens. I knew it was a new species for my apartment list (my 122nd), but did not realize until I looked at my records that it was new for my Inwood Hill Park list (my 230th).

Common Goldeneyes - 2/19/2025 

ADDENDA: Around noon I added another species to my apartment list. I had been hearing from birders in the park since the morning that there were one to three Horned Grebes over by Spuyten Duyvil. I had been watching hoping the incoming tide might push them over towards Muscota. I took a break to make some lunch. I was in the kitchen when Karina and Allen Greene texted me that one of the Horned Grebes was in the channel by the big “C”. Running back to the window I searched for it for a long time before finally spotting it. The bird was doing a lot of diving which was why it was so hard to spot. But when I did it became my 123rd species for the apartment.

January 23, 2025: Day 4 of the freeze - Warmer, but still below freezing.

Fourth day of the big freeze: temperatures were warmer today, but never rose close to the freezing point. The channel in front of Muscota had a considerable amount of floating ice most of the day. The cold temperatures continue to drive a variety of waterfowl into Inwood Hill Park. There were at least four Hooded Mergansers present, perhaps more. The most I saw at one time were three males and a female, but since I saw lone males at other times of the day, these could possibly have been additional individuals.

Hooded Merganser - January 23, 2025    ©️ Joseph DiCostanzo

It turned into a two merganser day when a female Common Merganser flew west just ahead of one of the commercial cruise boats which I suspect flushed it off the water east of my view. This may have been the same individual I saw in the channel off Muscota a few days ago on January 20th.

Also present today were seven Buffleheads, up from the five I saw yesterday. When I first saw them I assumed they were the same five males I saw yesterday. The second time I saw the group they were accompanied by a female Bufflehead and then a sixth male.

Rounding out the waterfowl for the day were the usual Canada Geese and Mallards who are here every day.

Yesterday, Allen and Karina Greene sent me a photo of a Horned Grebe they found near the Henry Hudson Bridge, yet another uncommon waterbird presumably brought to the park by the freeze.

January 22, 2025: Frost heaves and Buffleheads in Muscota Marsh.

No, frost heaves are not what you get when you eat bad frost. (Sorry. I couldn’t resist.) Frost heave is the phenomenon you get in areas of water saturated ground and extreme cold temperatures. The last few days of very cold temperatures here in Inwood Hill Park have been perfect for causing frost heaves in the mud of the Muscota mudflats. Frost heave occurs when the water in the ground (in this case the mud of the Muscota flats) freezes, Water expands when it freezes into ice crystals. This causes the ground (or mud) to also expand and “heave” upward. Below are some photos of frost heaves this morning at Muscota. The temperature was 10 F at sun-up. 

While I was typing the above post, five male Buffleheads appeared around the Point, apparently pushed in by the ice on the incoming tide. These are almost undoubtedly the five Buffleheads that Allen Greene saw two days ago under the Henry Hudson Bridge.

Once again, I apologize for the poor image quality caused by shooting through dirty window glass and heat shimmer.