Prospect Park

It has been a full month since I last got to see some new birds for the year. But with spring two days old by the calendar, I ventured into Prospect Park this morning. The grackles and jays were noisy as all get-out; dogs almost out-numbered people; at least four jerks were shouted into their cell-phones, interrupting my Transcendental moment. I knew that eastern phoebes were reported, and I expected to hear one before seeing it, but I saw several and hardly heard a thing. Phoebes are one of the earliest arrivals of the spring migration. And at the southern entrance to the Vale of Cashmere, a golden-crowned kinglet, poll ablaze, become my 72nd species of the year. The Vale was the place to be, as it often is: yellow-bellied sapsucker, white-throated sparrow, song sparrow, house finch, blue jay, red-bellied woodpecker (being evicted from his hole by a starling), American goldfinch, white-bellied nuthatch, nesting mourning doves, tufted titmouse, northern flicker, cardinal, action and song from ground-level up to the farthest branches. (And still too cold and unleafed for the perverts who gather in the bushes above at the end of the Rose Garden.)