There’s still plenty of time to see a variety of land birds and shorebirds at Marine Park’s Salt Marsh this season in one of the free Intro to Birding walks cosponsored by the Marine Park Alliance and the NYC Bird Alliance.
The series of six bird walks are during the spring bird migration season, which ranges from early March through early June.
The first bird walk was on May 3rd with the most recent one occurring on Sunday, May 17th.
On May 17th, the birding group met at the entrance of the Salt Marsh Nature Center, at 3301 Avenue U, at high tide. The walk was led by NYC Bird Alliance guide Russell Jacobs and accompanied by new MPA Program and Communications Manager Elliot Ma.
Jacobs said that the salt marsh was submerged but would change by the time they returned from their walk because of the tide cycles, which change about four times a day with a difference of about five feet.
“You can get a pretty dramatic transformation of the edges of the salt marsh just in the time it takes to take a little walk out there,” he said. “Often, you get a neat demonstration of the schedules of salt marsh birds that really time things to a specific part of the tide cycle so they can get some food.”
Birders were supplied with binoculars and taught how to use them to identify the various types of birds at the Salt Marsh. Many used the Merlin app to identify birds by sight or sound and then recorded the birds they spotted on a checklist on the eBird app.
The group spotted over 150 birds from 30 species that Jacobs posted on the Cornell Labs eBird website. The list becomes a part of a large global database of lists submitted by others that educators, scientists, birders and researchers around the world can access to contribute to science and conservation.
Here are the birds that were spotted that morning:
Mourning Doves, Chimney Swifts, American Oystercatcher, Willets, Laughing Gulls, American Herring Gulls, Least Terns, Forster’s Tern, Common Tern, Double-crested Cormorants, Glossy Ibises, Yellow-crowned Night Herons, Great Egrets, Ospreys, Eastern Warbling Vireo, Tree Swallows, Barn Swallows, European Starlings, Northern Mockingbirds, American Robins, Cedar Waxwings, House Sparrows, American Goldfinches, Song Sparrows, Red-winged Blackbirds, Brown-headed Cowbird, Common Grackle, Common Yellowthroat, American Redstarts and Northern Yellow Warblers.
“We had a great day out at Marine Park, with excellent views of some diamondback terrapins at the beginning and end of the outing,” Jacobs said. I was also excited to see a group of glossy ibises out there on the marsh, which are some of my favorite birds that visit NYC to breed.”
The next bird walk is scheduled for June 6th. There will be three more after that – on June 20th, July 11th and July 25th – so there is still time to join before the program concludes for the season.
Nesting ospreys, woodpeckers, flycatchers, marsh and wading birds are the main highlight of the summer from June through August.
When attending a bird walk in the coming months, be sure to dress appropriately; bring sunscreen and bug spray. For more information and to see the entire Marine Park Alliance calendar of events, visit marineparkalliance.org.
