On Thursday the 21st I had an hour or so to spend in Central Park and hustled through The Ramble, around the Lake and made my way to Belvedere Castle(pictured) not in that order. I was rewarded with a Swainson's Thrush, a Northern Pintail (both firsts)a song sparrow and the usual Robins (lots) mallards, catbirds,cardinals, a black and white warblers and other elusive creatures I couldn't spend time to ID.

On Monday the 18th I left work for 90 minutes or so and walked over to Central Park for a bit of birding. I went to the Ramble, mostly, though I also went around the lake. It was slow. I saw a Wood Thrush, some Redstarts and Robins, a Cardinal, Catbirds, and a Northern Waterthrush. The big sight of the day was a red tailed hawk. It was pointed our to me by a woman watching the bird. He was on a low branch about 20 yards away. We watched for a while, and I saw him take a massive pee, he just raised up his rump and squirted. I had never seen that before. I had to move on, and the hawk moved on. A little bit further along the path I saw the bird again and I asked a woman with bins, "Did you see the red-tail?"
She was extremely brusque in replying: "It's a Cooper's hawk."
I said, "Oh. Some woman told me it was a red-tail."
"IT's a Cooper's Hawk," she applied, even more brusquely.
Oh, well, it was a nice bird.

This Mute Swan swims serenely in the lake of Branch Brook Park, Newark, NJ, in the 1930s. The Basilica of the Sacred Heart looms in the background.

A good day for birding. I went to Montclair, hoping to spot some birds in Mills reservation off Normal Ave. No luck there: a couple of Mourning Doves. Anderson Park, ditto: an American Crow, house sparrows, starlings...
So I returned to Aunt Pat's house.In her yard, in short order I saw:
two Gold Finches
scads of Cardinals
House Sparrows
American Redstarts
two Ruby Throated Hummingbirds
Titmice
Chestnut-Sided Warbler(my first)
Downy Woodpecker
Mourning Doves.
Egrets, Blue Herons, on the train ride through the Medowlands coming and going.