Bronx Zoo Wildlife

Today Jack and I headed up to the Bronx zoo, to check it out in the wonderful weather.  Last time it was winter, and we had a great time, but only half the animals were on display!  And no monorail.  So we were back for more.

I drove because poor Jack has been so super stressed.  Which was totally fine until we were almost there and I saw a hawk flying around!  I wanted so bad to watch it, but ...... that would have been a bad idea.  All I could tell was that it was a hawk not a vulture (from the color underneath).  I hope Jack enjoyed it enough for both of us!

Then coming in from the parking lot, there was a group of chickadees in a couple of trees.  Well, it might be embarrassing, but out came the binocs and camera!  We were off to a great start!  :-)

Then we entered the actual zoo, and decided to head to Tiger Mountain and maybe see the enrichment session.  We started heading over along the river, and I spotted a great white egret on the way.  It was great!  I couldn't see the actual bird, just a reflection of white on the water, so I looked around to see if it was a bird, and there it was!  There was no way to get a picture, but we both clearly saw it.  I felt like such a spotter!

Okay, we left the egret and continued along the river.  The path sort of turned off, and there was a big patch of jewelweed so I said, "Oh, hummingbirds like this!" Jack said, "Well, let's just give it a minute......" We were totally joking, we did not think we'd actually see a hummingbird..... but one came right up!  We laughed and laughed, it was really wonderful.  It turned out that there was a huge expanse of jewelweed all along this path, and we were really super lucky to have seen the hummer.

We saw some of the animals on exhibit, but I think we're sort of over zoos.  I mean, we were really only marginally interested in the exhibit animals, we were much more into looking for wildlife while we were there.  By the way, plenty of chipmunks!  And I did find a redstart high up in the trees.

Then came my best spot ever!  I was hoping to see a perched hawk (you know, like I did at Prospect Park!) so I was looking at all the trees to see if anything was just pretending to be a branch.  And one branch was just a teeny bit suspicious, so I checked it out.  I thought at first that it was a green heron, but looking at the pictures now I think it was a juvenile black crowned night heron!  It was not banded.  Finding that guy felt like a real accomplishment.  :-)

Then above the heron was a mystery warbler.  Or something little and interesting.  A Mystery Interesting Little Bird.  MILB.