Another fruitless day looking about for hawks at the north end of Central Park and around Morningside Park.
Entering Central Park at 96th St. at 5:30, I moseyed over toward the reservoir and discovered that the North Gatehouse had some sun worshippers loitering on the roof.
You'd never have known it was 90°F out the way the cormorants were soaking up the rays.
After that I headed north and wandered around a bit. An egret flew over when I was atop Green Hill...
But otherwise not much to see nor hear. Just an occasional bad bearing on someone's inline skates passing by on the loop.
Morningside was chockful of families barbecuing, and any sound of birds was completely inaudible. The same thing happened last year about this week of July, so I'd guess the mass barbecue is a regular event.
I find it hard to believe that these birds are actually native to the area. Were they moved into the park??
ReplyDeleteGreat shots throughout the blog btw.
Not sure what you mean by "native". I think these guys are just visiting the park, but I believe there are one or two islands in the East River where there are cormorant rookeries.
ReplyDeleteCormorants nest on several islands in NY Harbor, including ones located up in the East River near Rikers, under the Verrazano Bridge, between Staten Island and NJ, and in Jamaica Bay, Brooklyn. For the past 3 years, a team of researchers led by Dr. Susan Elbin of NYC Audubon have banded juvenile cormorants in NY Harbor for the past 3 years, using orange bands with black letters. If you see any birds with these bands (or other color combinations), please report them to Dr. Elbin (selbin@nycaudubon.org).
ReplyDelete