Central Park Reservoir: Brant 28-Jan-2007

Flock of Brant (Branta bernicla)
CENTRAL PARK — RESERVOIR
Images by BEN CACACE
(Click images for a larger view)

A flock of 22 Brant landed on the reservoir around 8:30a on Sunday 28-Jan-2007. The flock left by 8:50a.

Scaup Identification Question: 28-Jan-2007

Scaup species — female
Central Park — Reservoir
Images by BEN CACACE

This scaup was on the reservoir this morning (Sun, 28 Jan 2007) briefly from at least 9:30a after I completed a loop of the reservoir. I left the area around 9:45a. The bird was not seen again by other birders I mentioned the sighting to.

Are there enough details in the two photos to ID this as Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis)? The images are cropped from the original without any additional compression other than the normal in-camera JPEG compression.

Thanks in advance and feel free to comment here or via email. See contact information in left sidebar.

Blog Carnival &mdash I and the Bird #41

The lastest issue of ‘I and the Bird’ — edition #41 — has just been released from ‘down under’ hosted by Snail from A Snail's Eye View.

This is a blog carnival for birds & birding. Below is a blogging definition from Wiktionary:

Blog Carnival: A blog article that contains links to other articles covering a specific topic. Most blog carnivals are hosted by a rotating list of frequent contributors to the carnival, and serve to both generate new posts by contributors and highlight new bloggers posting matter in that subject area.

Adirondack Birding Using Google Map API

A new site has been added to the left sidebar under ‘Birding Sites’. After searching for maps similar to the one I developed yesterday I came across a very nice implementation of a birding related Google Map API.

The site is called Birding in the Adirondacks from visitadironacks.com. To view the map click ‘Search by Map’ at the birding site.

The map is draggable and zoomable. There's an additional feature to search for birds using drop down lists. The bird chosen will filter the markers to those featuring the bird in question.

Clicking on any of the map markers will display the name of the location with an option to link to additional site details with driving directions.

Enjoy!

Great Kills Park, Staten Island 20-Jan-2007

Feel free to leave a comment. It would be good to know if this does or doesn't work on your browser.

The map above makes use of the Google Map Javascript API.

The marker descriptions relate to a recent outing to Staten Island's Great Kills Park on Saturday, January 20th. The experience was completely unexpected. I didn't realize there was a place like this so accessible from Manhattan. Needless to say it was good day!

Here's a link to the original report submitted to eBirds NYC. Public transportation was used to get to the site. We took the Staten Island Ferry to the S78 bus from ramp ‘D’.

• The zoom feature (+/-) works and the map is draggable.
• The choice between street ‘map’, ‘satellite’ view & ‘hybrid’ of satellite with street overlay is active.
• Click on markers for descriptions. To clear the box click on the map or click on another marker.
• Double click on map to center location.

Resources:

• Google Maps API with add’l links incl. documentation
• Mike Williams — Google Maps API Tutorial
• GMapEZ — Google Maps the easy way

Blog Carnival on Birds & Birding

Click the banner to read the latest 'I and the Bird' — edition #40. This is a blog carnival for birds & birding. Below is a blogging definition from Wiktionary:

Blog Carnival: A blog article that contains links to other articles covering a specific topic. Most blog carnivals are hosted by a rotating list of frequent contributors to the carnival, and serve to both generate new posts by contributors and highlight new bloggers posting matter in that subject area.