Day 284: October 10th – Riverfront birding

Cloudy and rainy with temps in the mid to upper 50s

       Birding along the Hudson River’s waterfront is somewhat predictable depending upon the season.  In winter, a wide variety of ducks join the swelling population of visiting Bald eagles and make for some very interesting birding.  At times, during the fall migration, thousands of swallows will gather by water’s edge as they make their way south.  Today was much more typical of a lazy fall day, however, with the standard avian assemblage.

       Things you can always count on at the waterfront….gulls.  At this time of year, the dominant species is the Ring-billed gull.  Smaller than the Black-backs and Herring gulls which will be prevalent all winter long, the Ring-bill is easy to identify.  As the name implies, the tip of its bill is circumscribed with a black ring.  Hundreds of these gulls were found along the water’s edge, in the parking lots, and on the river.  As expected……

       Also as expected, there were ducks.  Unlike the winter assemblage, however, the collection of ducks here today consists of one species, mallards.  With the exception of  few “domestic” ducks (many of which will readily breed with the mallards),

 there were no other ducks to be found along the entire quarter mile stretch I scouted today.  The Common mergansers, Canvasbacks, Buffleheads, and Hooded mergansers which can be found here in December are still hanging out in their summer digs and cannot be found here quite yet.

  

    Even the songbirds are precious few here today.  The omnipresent Northern mockingbird does show up for me and give a nice pose sitting upon a split rail fence near the ferry terminal.  Several others were also here today, but they were all unexpectedly silent.  Generally, you can hear them way before you ever see them, but today, for whatever reason, they have elected to sit quietly and watch the goings-on at the wharf.

        Last (and perhaps least) is the ubiquitous Rock pigeon.  Virtually everywhere in the world can be called home to a population of pigeons.  And yet, as common as they are, they still are quite handsome in their varied array of iridescent feathers.  Perhaps we all get a little jaded about this bird which is often referred to as a “trash bird” because of its commonness, but I do know that others are quite fond of the pigeon…namely kestrels, Cooper’s hawks, Eagles, and so on.  They must be tasty little morsels if you are a predator looking for a squab dinner.

       Time to call it a day.  We will revisit the Newburgh waterfront later this winter to see what shows up to spice the place up a bit.  Until then, we’ll have more than enough new sites to keep us busy.