A year in Central Park

December 15, 2013: View from the Great Hill on the 2013 Christmas Bird Count
in Central Park, looking south over the park toward lower Manhattan

I noticed a bird and quietly announced to a couple friends, the closest birders to me in the group, “There’s a titmouse.” This is not a particularly odd phrase, as Tufted Titmice are common North American birds, even in some urban parks. It didn’t even strike us as odd at the time, but it was the first individual titmouse of the day. We did think it a little strange that it was the only one we noted over a few hours at the end of our route. It became much more peculiar when all groups reporting at the round-up of the 114th annual Christmas Bird Count noted that it was in fact the only tufted titmouse that had been spotted or even heard during the event where over 100 people were scouring the park to document every bird species present.

The southern three-fourths of Central Park. The Lake is the water body
in the center of picture, with the Ramble just above it in the picture,
filling in the 90 degree angle. The Reservoir is the much larger water body
in the far left and it extends to around 97th St.

NYC Waters: Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge

One of my favorite things about living in NYC is this:

What other place in the country (in the world?) can you take public transit to a 9,000 acre wildlife refuge?

It surprises me how few people who live in NYC have been to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge; many people I talk to don't even know about it!

Flowers of Rwanda

Other than a couple local names recorded in field notes, I don't know the names of most of these flowering plants or anything about their ecology. All were photographed from 2010-2011 at Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village on a single hillside in central-eastern Rwanda.