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| Great Blue Heron |
I took the ferry from lower Manhattan over to Governors Island with my friend Sara. By the time she arrived at the ferry terminal, she had already spotted a Great Blue Heron sitting on the pilings over towards the Staten Island Ferry dock. Neither of us had seen one downtown before, so that was pretty exciting.
After a less than 10-minute ferry ride out into New York Harbor, we got off on the 172-acre island, which was used for military defense of the city starting during the Revolutionary War and continuing more recently as a Coast Guard base until 1996. Now much of it is accessible as a public park.
We headed over towards Fort Jay, which was built in 1794. It has high sandstone walls surrounded by a grassy moat, as well as an upland bushy area that birds like.
Along the way there was a migrating Palm Warbler in one of the trees.
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| Palm Warbler |
There were also some sparrows on the ground that turned out to be Savannah Sparrows. We haven't see those very often.
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| Savannah Sparrow |
Along the way we saw several other types of sparrows as well, including Swamp Sparrows, Song Sparrows and a few others I wasn’t so sure about.
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| Swamp Sparrow |
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| Song Sparrow |
An American Kestrel flew over and perched on an equipment tower next to the fort, a good place to scan for small birds for breakfast.
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| American Kestrel |
A couple of hungry Red-tailed Hawks also cruised over the meadow area.
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| Red-tailed Hawk |
And when we approached the high hill across from the Statue of Liberty, we saw a Cooper’s Hawk in the distance chasing little birds through the trees.
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| Cooper's Hawk soaring over New York Harbor |
There were whole flocks of migrating birds in the air around the hill, occasionally setting down, including Northern Flickers, Blue Jays, Cedar Waxwings and smaller Yellow-rumped Warblers.
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| Northern Flicker |
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| Blue Jay |
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A few members of the flock of Cedar Waxwings
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As we went back to the ferry, an Eastern Phoebe took a break from chasing insects to check us out, while a tiny, jumpy Golden-crowned Kinglet just went about its business.
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| Eastern Phoebe |
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| Ruby-crowned Kinglet |
The view of lower Manhattan was fabulous.
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