I read the interesting posting a few weeks ago about the exciting
experience a fellow chatter (sorry, can't remember the name) had at the
top of the Empire State Building. I just spent the weekend in NYC and
had an Audubon Moment of a completely different sort. As my friend and I
were riding the subway, I saw a bird fly across the car. My first
reaction was, "Oh no, a House Sparrow got into one of the cars." The next
thing I know, a woman sitting near us quickly gets up and grabs the
bird. "That's nice of that woman to want to save a House Sparrow," I
thought to myself with a somewhat false sense of concern (afterall, who
can get excited about a House Sparrow). This woman easily got a hold of
the bird, and as she was sitting back down I could see that this bird was
not a sparrow, but rather that it was some sort of warbler or vireo (it
had a long, thin bill). I really wanted to see what sort of bird this
woman was holding, but this voice in the back of my head kept saying,
"You're nuts to approach this woman, she might be some sort of
psycopath. She might take your interest in the bird in the wrong way,
whip out a gun and shoot you on the spot." (what can I say, this is only
the second time I've been to the big apple). Nonetheless, my curiosity
got the better of me, and I went up and asked if I could see the bird.
Fortunately the woman was very nice, and was more than willing to let me
get a look at it.

As odd as this may sound, I had a real hard time identifying the bird.
Give me binoculars and a bird in a bush and I'm OK, give me a bird in the
hand and I'm at a complete loss. My guess is that it was a Yellowthroat,
but I'm still not sure. Part of the problem was that I was never able to
see the bird as a whole. That is, in order to keep it restrained, the woman
was only able to show individual parts at a time. Consequently, I was
unable to get a good sense of the size and shape of the bird.
Nonetheless, here's a description: It was olive green above (from head
to tail), without any strong markings on the head, and nothing on the
wings. The tail was also olive green, and did not have any other
markings. The underside was yellow from the throat to the undertail
coverts (which were relatively short). There were also some paler
markings above (eg, the supercillium) and below the eye, but they were
not very bold. The bill seemed a little too long and heavy to be a
Yellowthroat, and the amount of yellow on the belly also seemed too
strong. However, no other birds seemed to match. I guess Orange-crowned
is also a possibility, but I didn't see any orange (though I did not part
any of the feathers on the crown either). Other features didn't match
anything like Mourning or Connecticut either (short undertail coverts, no
hooded effects, no eyering, etc.). Otherwise, I think most other
warblers would have had wingbars, or tail spots, or some sort of streaking.

The woman said that she picked it up on the steet, as it was flying very
low to ground, bumping into a building, and heading for the street
(and instant death) really fast. She thought that it needed help (as in
rehabilitation), but it didn't seem more than a little confused and
distraught to me. I told her that maybe just letting it go in the Park
would be all it would need. And with that, our stop soon came up, and I
left the bird and the woman behind.

So, that's my New York Audubon Moment. Certainly not on par with the
previous post, but an interesting contrast just the same.

Paul

Paul A. Pisano
ppisano at tfhrc.gov
FHWA, Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center
McLean, VA
703/285-2498