Led by Ryan Goldberg
A fantastic bird seen SEOW
Ryan's report
When I led my first BBC trip to Governors Island, in May 2022, our group found a number of exciting birds, among them a Seaside Sparrow and roosting Eastern Whip-poor-will. Several people from that trip returned for our fall excursion to the island yesterday, October 22. Riding the 7:30 AM ferry over, I joked to them that we'd find something rare again, like a Short-eared Owl.
Birding is funny. Getting to the island before the inevitable crowds (there was a pumpkin picking event that day), we quickly made our way to the meadow south of Fort Jay. Walking single-file on a mown path, trying to identify fast-moving sparrows, a Short-eared Owl flushed out of the grasses in front of me! My heart skipped a beat; I'm sure everyone else felt the same. We watched the owl land somewhere farther on in the meadow. About 15 minutes later, walking a lower path, it flushed again, this time into the lowest branch of an oak tree behind Nolan Park. From a safe remove we watched it flex its wings, look around with its yellow eyes, and hop along the branch. It was a life bird for a good many in the group -- one of whom was birding for the very first time.
Here is our eBird checklist from the day: https://ebird.org/checklist/S152872864. We had 19 participants: a great turnout.
The winds were strong out of the west, close to 20mph by mid-day, so that kept a lot of birds down. We saw 39 species in all, though of course the shortie was the major highlight. We also saw two pipits fly out of those grasses and witnessed a good variety of other raptors. Over the Hills at the south end of the island, we watched a Red-tailed Hawk at eye level kite into a 20mph headwind; the hawk would pull in its wings and then flex them out, and we watched it make these little adjustments to continue hovering mid-air in the same spot. It was a sight to behold.
There are photos in the checklist, and I'm attaching a few from Barbara Schelkle (of the shortie perched and the red-tail kiting) and Marisa Hernandez (of the shortie in flight).
Ryan
"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished" --Lao Tzu