The last thing on my mind was to see something truly nice in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which has many nice things anyway. I am talking about a great bird for the Garden (and Brooklyn) ,which often sits in Prospect Park's big shadow.For once, the limelight belonged to the Garden.
People were celebrating the Chinese Lunar Year festival in the garden, pomp and circumstance ,in dance form,inside the conservatory,a flower market up one floor, some Chinese lanterns hung outside , but Mary and I were looking for birds. Last thing we thought was a White-winged Crossbill.
We happened to just gotten off the Japanese Garden's celebrity path when Mary saw ( her third 1st sighting of four WWXbills this winter !) a bird fly into the Japanese hemlock next to the main path between the Shakespearean and Fragrance garden entrances. Yep, our rosy looking friend is in there, breaking open the small cones for its nourishment. Later about a few minutes I say, we lost the bird. However 5 minutes later it flew back , into the adjoining conifer, a Canadian or Eastern Hemlock.To make a long story short, my text emails to my groupies brought in about 8 friends besides two passing birders we knew happened to get lucky seeing us looking up thru our bins. They asked us what we were seeing.."A Chickadee perhaps ? " "Nope", says Mary " White Winged Crossbill." They scrambled up pretty fast , you know ?.......
White-winged Crossbill ( immature male between Fragrance and Shakespeare Garden entrances and below the Japanese Garden's Brooklyn Celebrity path. Look for an interpretive sign saying "What's in a Name ?" ).
Observers Mary Eyster, Peter Dorosh, M.O.s
video courtesy of Doug Gochfeld
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v17324244RbzTCtnC
Note: The Garden is closed Mondays. Hopefully the bird sticks around tuesday..there is plenty of pine cones and spruce crop there...
