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A bird in the bush is worth seven on foot By Qainat Khan newsroom@riverdalepress.com
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group of seven nature lovers milled about the Van Cortlandt Park Nature Center early Saturday, the first day of fall, preparing to embark on a birding trip. Audubon Society volunteer bird walk guide Andrew Baksh, wearing a khaki colored safari hat and utility vest, set up his scope at the edge of the Parade Ground. “Excessive chatter, leave it in the back,” he said firmly as the group set out. “I bird by ear. I need to listen.” What was billed as a one-and-a-half-hour bird walk, turned into a three hour stroll around Van Cortlandt Park — across the Parade Ground, up the trails to the lake, and back to the Van Cortlandt manor. No bird was too common or too insignificant to note; the tiny chimney swifts elicited nearly as excited of shouts from Mr. Baksh as the great blue heron. Mr. Baksh made bird calls to draw out the game from thickets and trees, and he did identify birds by sound, even before catching sight of them. But birders on the walk were beginners. Hilary Russ, 41, has only been birding seriously for a couple of years. “I don’t like to anthropomorphize, it’s not exactly like watching people, but its similar,” she says of her hobby. She started noticing birds when vacationing in Florida, and enjoyed what she calls “the soap op-
era” of their existences. “Different birds have different personalities, “ she said. Ms. Russ said she heard a mockingbird singing quietly, practicing its repertoire. “As if he were singing to himself,” she said. “And it was just fantastic!” At the southern end of the lake, as it began getting too hot for jackets, Harvey Rosenberg, 74, was the first to spy a small bird among the mud flats of the shore. “It’s a green heron,” he said confidently. Mr. Baksh confirmed and set up his scope for better viewing. The bird has long legs and huge talons, and its disproportionately squat body is beautifully patterned with brown and green. Mr. Rosenberg is a lifelong New Yorker who likes birding for its solitude. “I was a Jewish kid who grew up in an Irish Catholic neighborhood … so I wound up spending a lot of time on my own.” When he wasn’t playing in the streets, he went fishing and walking in Van Cortlandt Park. Somewhere along the way, he said he fell out of the ritualized solitude of his youth. It wasn’t until he retired from teaching that he started taking long walks again. “I’m up before dawn, and there’s not that much to do,” Mr. Rosenberg said. “So I get my café con leche and my toasted Spanish bread, and I go to the park ... I had forgotten how beautiful Van Cortland Park was.” Guided Bird Walks take place in Van Cortlandt Park every Saturday at 8:00 a.m., beginning at the Van Cortland Nature Conservancy. They are free and open to all levels of experience and obsession at no cost.
Photos by Marisol Díaz
BIRD WATCHERS walk through Van Cortlandt Park on Saturday, above. Clockwise from top left, an American Robin perches on a branch; a black-white warbler flies near the group after Andrew Baksh, a NYC Audubon volunteer, made bird sounds to get its attention; a blue heron plays in the water; Mr. Baksh talks to the group about what birds they might see; a green heron stands on a rock after eating a frog; and a great egret wades through water.
Wishes the Riverdale Community a Blessed Yom Kippur