Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Belated Virginia Rail report in Prospect 9/17

 The club received a note through its website  from Janice Arakaki who doesn't birdwatch of a VIRGINIA RAIL seen over the past weekend. Janice was walking near the ballfields when she spotted an odd bird standing at and near the base of a large tree which looks to me a Beech.

Unsure of what kind of bird it was, she took photographs of the bird and promptly contacted us thru the website where BBC's Janet Zinn identified the bird.

A really good bird and thanks to Janice for taking photos and contacting us.

Virginia Rails are known for their odd migration behaviors, turning up in the oddest of places; one even showed up years ago inside the Picnic House hallway during a wedding !   (check our BBC website photo gallery "Gallery of Unusual Park Visitors"). Another turned up inside a laundry bin in a 7th Ave Laundromat. Weird birds....

The bird was spotted at 40.661069° N,73.976261° W which is along the path between the western Ballfields and the Bridle Trail ( the horse loop).  ( you can google this latitude /longitude into Google maps copy and paste to see the sat map). Janice's camera has a GPS feature.

Anyway, here are the links below from Janice Arakaki's picasa photo gallery.

http://tinyurl.com/VrailPP

gallery -- >  http://tinyurl.com/Vrailpp1