Birds of Sunset Park: Welcome to rarity season

For most people, there are four seasons: winter, spring, summer and fall. But for a birder, it’s more complicated. When the year starts, it’s already “weird duck season,” when the city plays host to waterfowl with funky names and even funkier appearances, like Hooded Mergansers, Buffleheads, Northern Shovelers and Canvasbacks.

The winter months are also gulling season, when in addition to the resident gulls, one might see Bonaparte’s, Black-headed, Iceland or Glaucous Gulls. In April and May, spring migration brings a rush of migrant songbirds, after which a relative quiet descends on the city, as a lot of birds become more secretive while they raise broods, either here or further north.

The summer lull is then broken by the arrival of a wondrous array of shorebird species, wading birds like plovers and sandpipers, dowitchers and oystercatchers. While wader season is still ongoing, fall migration begins, as the birds that flocked north to breed now make their way back south for the winter.

In November and December, when expected migration is tapering or fully over, unexpected migration comes into play as we enter one of the most curious and exciting parts of the birding calendar: rarity season. This is when “vagrant” birds really show up, a vagrant being a bird that has ended up far from its expected range. The factors causing this are either weather systems, especially storms, or more commonly, the bird having a faulty internal navigation system. In practice, this means birds we’d expect to be heading south for the winter will sometimes actually go east.

Two years ago, I was in Sunset Park one chilly early winter morning when I heard a bird call I did not recognize. I followed the sound of this soft, slightly hiccupy chirp and, as I neared, used the Merlin app to try and identify it. Merlin is not 100 percent accurate, but it told me that what I was hearing was a Western Tanager, a bird typically found on the other side of the country but that is prone to vagrancy. When I tracked down the bird, I saw a muddy yellow, midsized songbird: yes, a Western Tanager! I took a few backlit photos to prove it was actually there, but a few minutes later it flew into a tree with dense foliage and disappeared for good. I was the only person to see it.

Last year, during a quick, impromptu birding trip to Bush Terminal Park in November, I was wandering by the woods when I saw a flighty, dynamic bird jousting with some robins. This very cooperative yellow, gray and brown bird was a Western Kingbird, a gorgeous species of flycatcher that’s a very rare visitor to New York City. In great excitement, I got the word out to other birders, who started showing up in a steady stream to see this handsome vagrant. The Western Kingbird stayed there for five days, charming the 80 or more birders who came to enjoy its company.

As I write this, rarity season is already under way. Although I have not been lucky enough yet to personally see any plucky vagrants who have made their way through unlikely circumstances to NYC, I’ll be scouring the best spots in the neighborhood and keeping my eyes and ears open. Because if birders don’t do that, these awesome birds can easily come and go without us ever knowing.

You can use this link to join the Sunset Park Birds group on WhatsApp, where I always post about good birds, whether they are rare or not. Happy rarity season and happy holidays.