A Manhattan Turkey Hunt

New York, New York

Friday 12 April 2019 63 °F

Today I heard that there was a report of two (very confused) Wild Turkeys up at a small vacant lot in the Washington Heights neighborhood of northern Manhattan! After school, I rode the A train up there to find them. The location was a weird shrubby patch on a steep hill beneath some condo buildings:

But sure enough, after a few minutes of searching, we heard some clucking and scratching from underneath the bushes and there were two unmistakeable WILD TURKEYS! An awesome bird for Manhattan — these birds are common breeders in Upstate NY and eastern Long Island, but are hard to come by in the city — a theory is that there is a small, underdetected population that ranges into the Bronx and uses the Hudson River as a flyway of sorts to make occasional forays into Manhattan such as these two birds. Whatever the case, a very interesting scenario!

Then, it was off to the Central Park North Woods with my girlfriend to enjoy a lovely spring afternoon and hopefully find some migrant bird species. The Red-eared Slider turtles have emerged for the spring!

BLUE JAY:

Beautiful flowers:

We had a wonderful time.

DOWNY WOODPECKER:

SWAMP SPARROW:

This carefree PALM WARBLER was lovely to see:

As was its bright cousin the PINE WARBLER:

One patch of trees must have held about half a dozen of these beautiful BROWN CREEPERS:

RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET:

Also without pictures here were a YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER & the usual GADWALL on the Harlem Meer, two species worth mentioning. Bird-of-the-day to the Wild Turkeys with runner-up to the Pine Warbler.

A great afternoon and evening of birding and enjoying nature to wrap up a busy week! Spring is finally here!

Good birding,
Henry
World Life List: 970 Species

Posted by skwclar 22:40 Archived in USA