2022 11 26
Shovelers and Hand-feeding Titmice at Central Park¶
2022-11-26
After stuffing ourselves with multiple Thanksgiving meals these past few days (leftovers included), we decided to take advantage of the unusually nice weather in November (50 and sunny) and choose to take a day trip to New York City. We planned to do birding at Central Park and after seeing multiple posts on the Manhattan Birds Twitter account of people hand-feeding birds there, I also packed bird feed and peanuts.
We started our adventure in NYC with a pastrami sandwich from Lenwich as well as a caffeine and sugar overdose from a coffee and black and white cookie. Probably not the best meal to have before walking over 7 miles but it worked out. Our first stop at Central Park was The Lake near The Ramble. Here we saw some ducks that looked like Mallard Ducks but had their heads down in the water as they swam in circles. When one of them emerged from the water, we quickly realized it was a different species of duck due to their differently shaped bills and colored plumage called Northern Shovelers. The female looks similar to Mallards but the male has a bright yellow eye and molting immatures look spotty (and kind of funny).
Our next stop was a location I had pinned on Google Maps from my previous visits which had several bird feeders set up among the trees. Near the feeders, we found a bench where someone had put a bunch of bird feed on the ground as well as peanut butter on smaller tree branches. The area was full of birds and squirrels scrambling to feed. Here we took out the bird feed and held out our hands. In seconds we had Tufted Titmice, Black-capped Chickadees, and even a House Sparrow land and eat from our hands. We didn't expect it to be so easy!
We ended up sitting on those benches hand feeding birds for the next two hours. Many people walked by us, including a birding tour group, and were surprised by the birds eating from our hands. One couple that walked by seemed very amazed and I offered the lady some bird feed so she could try while her partner got a picture. Within seconds, a Tufted Titmouse landed on her hand and she said it was like a dream come true and thanked us. Later, a man walked by with a child who was trying to hand feed a bird with a piece of corn he picked up. The man jokingly said he only had a minute to wait before he had to walk him back to his parents. But a Tufted Titmouse landed on his hand in just a few seconds and ate the corn.
After two hours on that bench, we didn't even feel like we were in the city anymore. We decided that was probably enough and walked to another bird feeder setup in The Ramble where we saw a crown of people observing a Barred Owl high up in the trees. We hand-fed some more birds here for a bit and then went to Times Square to explore and get some food. We will definitely be going back to Central Park to hand-feed birds when the Spring migration brings in new species.
Locations/Sightings¶
-> #location/CentralPark-NYC