Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Baltimore Oriole nest in central park south end


So today I walked around the pond - definitely the place to be in the summer - and saw some favorites.  More on that later.  Then I went over to see if that budgerigar would come around again, and to check for the pair of orioles I saw there on Sunday.  Well, no parakeets were evident, but the orioles were there, and so was their nest!


Baltimore oriole boasting about this amazing nest!
My most favoritest Baltimore oriole nest




I'm completely thrilled that I got to see this!  :-)  

The pond was great again today, with two black crowned night herons, a great egret having a snack, a bullfrog swimming and singing, an eastern kingbird, and the annoying music guy was not there!  Ah, bliss.

Black crowned night heron, this one likes trees
Black crowned night heron, this one likes water




Sunday, June 12, 2011

Parakeet (budgerigar?) on lawn near the Pond

Jack and I went over to take a slow walk around the pond, but it was closed due to the Puerto Rican Pride parade.  I'm not really sure why.  We decided to sit on the rocks on the lawn across from the pond, and in flew in someone unusual!  At first I thought maybe it was a molting goldfinch, but it became clear that I had no idea what it was.




Looking it up later, I think it's a budgerigar.  I was thinking a parakeet of some sort.  I did not see a band, and it was not friendly - I didn't actually get very close, but it did not stay around long.  Probably for the best.  Next we saw a pair of Baltimore orioles being chased off by a robin, then a loud ruckus which resulted in a hawk coming over, apparently the blue jays and grackles had been mobbing it.

It was a pretty eventful 10 minutes!  :-)