Winter 2018 Brooklyn Bird Club’s The Clapper Rail Winter 2018 Editor's note Inside this issue 3 2017 Christmas Bird Count 7 Snowbirds Michele Dreger: a Walk Through the Years Clapper rail at Plumb Beach. Photograph by Marc Brawer. 10 Birders make different New Year’s resolutions 13 New Year’s Traditions than most. A new patch to explore, more songs to learn, a target number of species for the county, state or country. As for the Brooklyn Bird Club, 2018 opens 14 Naturalist’s Column some new chapters. Dennis Hrehowsik has become president after Rob Bate called an end to his fve years in that role. Rob, of course, isn’t going anywhere, 15 Sparks! and will continue to spearhead conservation efforts. You can learn more about Dennis, how he got to this point and his ideas for the club, in this issue. In other 17 A Call for Poetry Submissions news, we recap December’s Christmas Bird Count (with a stellar map designed by Tina Alleva) and share with you a report on the BBC’s fnances, courtesy of 18 A Presidential Profle treasurer Heidi Steiner. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t recognize a few new editorial contributors: Mike Yuan, who wrote the 22 The American Birding Expo Sparks column, long-overdue since he proposed this series some years ago, and illustrator Jen Kostman, who joins our outstanding roster of artists. There’s also 24 Tracking owls: Project SNOWstorm a call for poetry submissions, another Clapper Rail frst. But New Year’s resolutions can be bittersweet, 26 BBC Financial Report and for Michele Dreger, who has led Prospect Park’s weekend beginner’s walks for more than 15 years, hers include moving to Florida. As Tina writes in a profle 28 Club Gallery of her friend and birding mentor, Michele has led over 1,000 walks in that time, averaging roughly three newcomers per walk, which comes to a total of 3,000 30 2017 Christmas Bird Count Appendix people she introduced to birds in the park. Forget a New Year’s resolution, that’s the gift of a lifetime. The Brooklyn Bird Club President: Dennis Hrehowsik – Ryan Goldberg http://www.brooklynbirdclub.org The Clapper Rail Editor: Ryan Goldberg Deputy Editor: Janet Schumacher Cover: Red-headed woodpecker at Green-Wood Cemetery. Art & Design: Tina Alleva, Angie Co Photograph by Janet Zinn. 2 The Clapper Rail Winter 2018 By Ryan Goldberg Northern ficker at Brooklyn Bridge Park. Photograph by Janet Zinn. At Green-Wood Cemetery, fve birders warmed It has been a troubling winter for songbirds. The from a stop in the mausoleum waited for a juvenile count yielded all-time lows for American goldfnches, red-headed woodpecker that never did show… titmice, and dark-eyed juncos, plus decade-lows for In Prospect Park, other birders ran into three tufted hermit thrushes, cedar waxwings, and white- and titmice, unaware that they would be found nowhere red-breasted nuthatches. There was one black-capped else that day… chickadee at Prospect Park. In my group at Green- Elsewhere, at Breezy Point, a merry band of seven Wood Cemetery, a lone white-breasted nuthatch was sea-watchers counted too-distant-to-identify scoter the extent of our tiny songbirds. No purple fnches or focks: “1,498, 1,499, 1,500”... pine siskins were seen. (See the charts at the end of the While at Spring Creek, a grasshopper sparrow issue.) In the two months after the count, the feeders in popped up onto a leafess branch, a half-century frst... Prospect Park remained as quiet as a vigil. For the 118th annual Christmas Bird Count on Still, as is the case this time of year, most of the December 16, 88 birders on 11 different teams fanned action was coastal. Experienced birders suggested out across beaches, creeks, marshes, parks, sewage that a big freeze up north may have pushed waterfowl treatment plants and old landflls, along the Brooklyn to our shores. Buffehead, nearly 800 of them, were coast from Williamsburg to Jamaica Bay and out to the seen in above-average numbers, as were common western Rockaways (sorry, Queens County Bird Club), loons and, in the only all-time high for waterfowl in through city streets to historic parks and cemeteries. 2017, hooded mergansers. More than half of the 111 Their observations were pieced together that reported came from Jamaica Bay, where the West Pond night at the Brooklyn Bird Club’s annual compilation was frozen, which itself was a good sign—that meant at Prospect Park’s boathouse. The picture they told that it’s back to freshwater. “That’s one duck that’s was tense and occasionally dispiriting, with “lots of doing well,” Rick Cech said of the hoodies. Seventeen fngernail catches” for common species, as compiler Northern pintails also surfaced on the East Pond. My Rick Cech put it, but with some pleasant surprises and heart goes out to the folks there who counted 16,300 an overall count of 120 species that was in-line with brant—the most-abundant bird in the count area—out past records. of the 22,957 recorded on the day. 3 The Clapper Rail Winter 2018 Unsurprisingly, Sean Sime’s group at Breezy Point came up with key sightings, such as 25 common eiders and a fyover of fve common mergansers, which joined eight others on the day for a decade-high count of 13. A pair of Bonaparte’s gulls was a save, as was a pair of chipping sparrows, and a snowy owl. More snowies would follow in the weeks to come, however, close to 10 at Breezy, Jamaica Bay, and Floyd Bennett Field by the time of writing. Orange-crowned warbler at Bergen Beach. Photograph by Tripper Paul. Nearby, the Spring Creek group led by Steve Nanz earned quite a few save birds, such as two ring-necked pheasants at the Pennsylvania Avenue landfll and the aforementioned grasshopper sparrow at Spring Creek. Common mergansers at Breezy Point. Photograph by Sean Sime. Nanz’s photo of the bird made it into Rick Cech’s Due east at Jacob Riis Park and Fort Tilden were slideshow presentation that night. Along the coast, six Shane Blodgett, Klemens Gasser, and American orange-crowned warblers were spotted at fve different Museum of Natural History’s own Paul Sweet, who locations, tying an all-time high for the species. also recorded good numbers, which occasionally Word of the grasshopper sparrow had leaked out tracked with the Breezy bunch and later led to a comic during the day, but in Prospect Park, Michele Dreger repartee between team leaders Sean and Shane at the and Tina Alleva had kept a lid on their secret sighting. compilation. “We saw ours frst,” Shane joked. On the edge of the ice in the lake’s north-shore Canvasback and ring-necked ducks were nowhere phragmites, they found the juvenile common gallinule to be seen, which means they could soon drop from that had turned up there the month before but hadn’t irregular sightings to rarities. Three red-necked grebes been seen in a few weeks. Michele triumphantly raised at Floyd Bennett Field were a major highlight. One her hand when Rick Cech called out the species, and American bittern few out at the Plumb Beach marsh held up her camera with the photo to prove it. and two red-shouldered hawks came out at Marine Park. For more details, see the charts at the end of the issue. Grasshopper sparrow at Spring Creek. Photograph by Steve Nanz. Green-winged teal at Spring Creek. Photograph by Steve Nanz. 4 The Clapper Rail Winter 2018 Clockwise from top: Long-tailed ducks (Matthieu Benoit); hybrid Brant-Snow geese (Mike Yuan); Chipping sparrow (Sean Sime); Ruddy ducks (Rick Cech); Snow geese (Sean Sime). 5 The Clapper Rail Winter 2018 PROSPECT PARK NORTH SHORE 19 PARTICIPANTS SPRING CREEK 8 PARTICIPANTS 52 SPECIES 8 PARTICIPANTS 36 SPECIES HIGHLIGHTS: Wood Duck SPECIES HIGHLIGHTS: Eurasian (5), Common Gallinule 61 Wigeon, Common Raven (2) HIG HLIGHTS: Grasshopper Sparrow, Ring-necked Pheasant (2) BERGEN BEACH 4 PARTICIPANTS 57 SPECIES HIG HLIGHTS: Orange- crowned Warbler (2), Marsh Wren GREEN-WOOD 11 PARTICIPANTS JAMAICA BAY SPECIES 33 MARINE PARK 6 PARTICIPANTS HIGHLIGHTS: Snow Goose (25), Great Horned Owl 5 PARTICIPANTS 65 SPECIES 61 SPECIES HIGHLIGHTS: Barn Owl, Brown Thrasher HIGH LIGHTS: American Bittern, Red-shouldered OWL’S HEAD Hawk (2) 9 PARTICIPANTS 53 SPECIES HIGHLIGHTS: Surf Scoter, FLOYD BENNETT Purple Sandpiper (3) 8 PARTICIPANTS 50 SPECIES HIGHLIGHTS: Eastern Meadowlark (4), Red-necked Grebe (3) BREEZY POINT 7 PARTICIPANTS 61 SPECIES HIGHLIGHTS: Snowy Owl, Common Eider (25) RIIS PARK 3 PARTICIPANTS 52 SPECIES HIGHLIGHTS: Hermit Thrush, Northern Pintail (4) 2017 CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT BROOKLYN 11 88 120 56,886 TEAMS PARTICIPANTS SPECIES TOTAL BIRDS COUNTED 6 Christmas bird count map by Tina Alleva. The Clapper Rail Winter 2018 appreciation than it gets. The junco, I learned, has a lot Snowbirds to teach us. By Sheila Friedman Dark-eyed juncos have been the subject of studies for almost 100 years. In the 1920s, William Rowan, Snowbirds are here! No, I’m not referring to the head of the zoology department at the University of your parents or grandparents who migrate to Florida Alberta, in Canada, was the frst to study them. Rowan each year to escape the frigid New York winters. The had always been interested in nature and ecology, but snowbirds I’m talking about are those chubby, sparrow- his main interest was birds. According to the University sized gray and white birds that make their appearance of Alberta Alumni Association, Rowan “viewed at the frst sign of cold weather.