Start of Summer at The Battery

 

Most of the migratory warblers have moved on to their nesting grounds up north, the resident 

birds at The Battery are settling in for the summer.  

Astoria, the wild turkey, recently showed off her dance steps in an impromptu performance 

on the gate to the playground.

While a Northern Mockingbird sang along nearby.

An American Robin stopped to listen, then went back to foraging on the ground for bugs.

Baby robins were waiting for food in a nest in The Battery’s woodland area.

 

                               

And along the back wall of the park, a pair of Northern Cardinals were going in and out of a corner with dense foliage. Possibly a nest? It seemed like the female cardinal came out to tell us off. 

                      

Other young birds were already emerging from their nests. Including a Mourning Dove near the maintenance area.

            

And a baby European Starling over by the back of the park near the Staten Island Ferry.

The baby starling was being watched over by one of the parents. 

                   

There seemed to be a family of Gray Catbirds behind the playground, with young ones fluttering around then disappearing behind the leaves.

Down by the water a handsome male Mallard duck was just lounging around by himself. Mallard females usually nest up along the Hudson River at the little pond in Battery Park City, but the males are only involved in the mating, and don’t help with raising the ducklings.  

                           

Sometimes Fish Crows will nest in the pine trees at The Battery, but this crow was just surveying the harbor from the flagpole by the Coast Guard building. So maybe an American Crow feeling patriotic.