Some belated yet historical news for Brooklyn's natural history
Paul Sweet, Collections manager for the Division of Vertebrate Zoology - Ornithology of the American Museum of Natural History alerted me a few weeks ago of a small owl that was spotted roosting inside a backyard dense wisteria vine on October 18th this past fall at the home of a person he knew. He requested a photograph of the bird which he received and identified as SCREECH OWL , gray phased. It stayed only one day, seen between 2 and 6 pm. After dusk, it flew up to a birch tree and departed. I just received more details yesterday after inquiring Paul who contacted again the lucky observer.
The location of the roosting bird was in the Cobble Hill section, on Baltic Street between 4th and 5th Avenues.
Unless I received any other specific dated documentation, this sighting represents the FIRST SCREECH OWL sighting in Brooklyn in close to fifty years ! According to the NYS Bulls atlas, Screech Owl purportedly were recorded in Prospect Park in the early 1960's . A noted very early sighting documented on my office records was a Screech Owl seen around Christmas Day in 1908 (Observer, Dr Edward and Kate P Vietor ), when actual Christmas Bird Counts took place on or very close to December 25th.
from Cornell's ebird, a profile http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eastern_Screech-Owl/id
Good birding,
--The Kingsboider
