Week 3 - Green-Wood Cemetery

Week 3 began with relatively warm, calm weather. This Palm Warbler, that has lingered since fall migration, was checking out the bee hives at Dell Water. That would change drastically as an arctic blast arrived in the northeast. Hopefully he managed to find enough to eat within the tangle of mugwort adjacent to the hives.

By mid-week windchills had plunged into the teens. Over the weekend we were feeling single digits accompanied by 25mph northwest winds! The flocks of robins and starlings that had been filling up on rotting fruit beneath a stand of Common Persimmons along Alder Avenue would have to look elsewhere for food as snow and ice now covered that spot.

Red-breasted Nuthatches are finding food within the numerous pine cones throughout the cemetery. Volunteers are keeping the feeders stocked with seeds and suet for increasing number of finches, sparrows and our three species of woodpeckers. There's still only a single titmouse present, but I'm hoping the cold snap will inspire more to head towards Brooklyn.

I was pleasantly surprised to find an Eastern Towhee foraging beneath a juniper tree just inside the 20th Street entrance. Last winter we had 4 overwinter near the rear of the historic chapel.

White-throated Sparrows and Fox Sparrows, typical overwintering species, hadn't been seen in very large numbers. However, it seems the colder weather has caused that number to go up. Many use the azalea and other shrubs as safety from predators, as well as, good places to scratch for seeds. The maze of footprints in the snow around the base of these spots bear that out.

Sweetgum trees are still holding onto some seeds and providing a source of food. A single crabapple at Crescent Water, oddly, is still loaded with fruit. Perhaps they don't taste very good or the birds know to wait until later in the winter, when they are much softer.

The weather forecast this week calls for a brief warming and lots of rain. Should be interesting to see how that changes things in my local patch.