A Weekend of Spring Migration in NYC

If you are anything like me, you probably get asked: “Do you ever go on a non-birding vacation?”. My quick answer is “no.” I may pick most of my vacation destinations based on the birds I would likely get to see or visit a famed birding site, but there have been instances when birding is a secondary purpose for traveling.

A recent trip to the Big Apple was one such exception. We have never been anywhere north of North Carolina on the eastern seaboard – it is a glaring blank space on my eBird ABA map. On a whim, we decided to plan a trip and see what the City That Never Sleeps had to offer. Living on the West Coast, we do not have the spectacular spring migration that brings waves of warblers or throngs of thrushes. So, I always try to weasel in a spring migrant trip. There were a few things we knew we had to do bird-wise: bird at The Ramble. Non-bird-wise? The touristy stuff and The Daily Show.

We landed at JFK and took the hour-long ride on the subway into Manhattan, where we had booked a room between Central Park, Times Square, and the Empire State Building. That night, we got tickets to the Mixtape Comedy Show at Gotham Comedy Club, hoping that maybe Amy Schumer or Judah Friedlander would appear. Not that night, so we got some pizza and wandered around Times Square.

The next morning, we were anxious to get to Central Park and see what warblers were around. On the walk there, we stumbled upon the Plaza at 30 Rock and a White-throated Sparrow doing its best to be heard over the city noises. We entered the park at the southeast corner, adding a few eastern species to our year list: Blue Jay and Hermit Thrush.

I quickly realized that I had underestimated the park’s size, and it would be a long walk to the Ramble, so I could not stop for every bird if I ever wanted to make it there. We had signed up for the local Discord, and notifications flooded our feed with a Prothonotary Warbler sighting near the oak bridge. Once we found an online map, we oriented ourselves to the birders standing at the water’s edge, looking for the bird. Across the pond was a yellow dot hopping around the trees, leaning over the water, and several of us had good looks at it.

Now to see what else there was! We meandered back up the hill around the winding paths of the Ramble, spotting birders here and there until we reached the Azalea Pond and seemingly, the world’s supply of White-throated Sparrows. We added a few more migrants to the list, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Northern Waterthrush and Baltimore Oriole.

Over the next few hours, we followed previous eBird sightings and Discord notifications to various spots around Central Park. But I also just wanted to see it all. It is spectacular. So many people who are biking, pushing strollers, birding, heading to work, selling fruit at stands, etc., use this public resource in so many ways. But it is also easy to be fully enraptured by the natural spaces that you forget you are in the middle of one of the largest cities in the US. We reached the park’s northern edge, adding a few more migrants: Ovenbird, Louisiana Waterthrush, and Wood Thrush to the list.

But then had to get back for the recording of The Daily Show, which was also amazing – highly recommend!

Afterwards, we headed to the Empire State Building based on the recommendation from Lili Taylor’s recent book, Turning to Birds: The Power and Beauty of Noticing, which I finished reading just days before getting to NYC. Towards the end, Taylor discusses visiting the Empire State Building at night during migration to watch the birds fly over. BirdCast had also forecasted that the night we were going on was an active bird movement night.

We got to the first viewing area and did not spy any migrants, so we headed up to the top and saw none. Disappointed, we returned to the lower platform to try one last time. Just after 10:00 pm, I saw, what looked like, a cotton ball blowing in the breeze. A few minutes later, there was another. From 10:15 pm to 10:30 pm, we spotted about a dozen small birds flying around the top of the building. They were lit up and moving so fast that identification was impossible. There were likely hundreds or thousands of others out of sight.

The next morning, we spent about two hours in the Ramble at Evodia Field, where we craned our necks looking to the treetops at the Cape May Warbler, Black-and-white Warblers, Blue-winged Warblers, and more that fluttered through the trees.

This trip to NYC was exciting, with unexpected moments that made this not-birdy-but-birdy vacation an absolute thrill.