Green-Wood Cemetery Updates

As I'm sure you've noticed, I haven't been doing regular updates to this blog for quite a long time. After 16 years, you probably can't blame me. I'm trying to get back to my old form, so bear with me.

Green-Wood Cemetery, in strict accordance with the Governor's guidelines, hasn't restarted their tours. I will be leading a few small tours for the Brooklyn Bird Club and the Linnaean Society of New York in coming weeks, so stay tuned.

I've been wandering around the cemetery on my own over these very trying months, and lately the southbound birds haven't been social-distancing. Wednesday of last week (August 26th) saw a huge movement of migrants through the NYC area. At Green-Wood I observed 65 species in 6 hours. 17 of those were just warblers; the most abundant being American Redstart, followed closely by Black-and-white Warblers. A Worm-eating Warbler foraging within an azalea shrub at Pine Hill was my first for Brooklyn this year. In that same spot was a flock of 8 Ovenbirds wandering around beneath the huge pines. Two days ago a beautiful male Golden-winged Warbler was found in a mixed flock near the Crescent Water. I sped over on my bicycle and was fortunate enough to find it. This was only the second time I've seen this species in the cemetery in two decades. My friend Daisy has some nice pics of it here.

It's interesting to note that Red-breasted Nuthatches have returned with a vengeance. After a near complete absence from NYC last winter, it looks like we'll be seeing them and hearing their adorable "yank, yank" calls for the next several months. I hope that it is a sign we'll be experiencing an invasion of winter finches from the north this winter. I'll post that forecast here as soon as it becomes available. In the meantime, here's some of my recent images from Green-Wood Cemetery: