After reading Red Tails In Love earlier this year, I’ve wanted to get more into bird watching in Central Park, so I asked for binoculars for Christmas. I ended up with two new pairs: a compact 8×25 weatherproof Celestron Outland and a larger, higher clarity Nikon Action 8×40; perfect for Margaret and I to use together. And, to accompany the new binocular gifts, I got a book detailing most of the birds commonly seen in Central Park called, not surprisingly, Birds of Central Park. The book comes with a handy pocket-sized field guide that has small pictures of many of the birds you’re likely to see in The Park.
Being New Year’s Day, we didn’t wake up until noon, and didn’t get out of the apartment until 3:30pm. Sunset was at 4:45pm-ish today, and by the time we made it to the park it was already getting dark. Still, we managed to spot and identify a few birds. Here’s the list:
- One Ruddy Duck – diving for food in the Resevoir
- One Red-Tailed Hawk (we’re pretty sure it wasn’t a different hawk) – perched atop the Southern pumpinst station at the Resivoir
- Four Northern Shovelers (3 male, 1 female) – in The Lake from out on The Point
The binoculars really help to appreciate the birds up close. The Northern Shovelers have cute broad bills.