By Yonatan Simkovich, Staff Writer
On September 27 at 10:30 AM on Randall’s Island in New York City, a small group of 30-year-old birdwatchers — Tim Healy, Ryan Zucker, Dmitriy Aronov and Adam Cunningham — came across a songbird that didn’t seem to fit any of the expected species for North America. The group posted some photos online, and within hours hundreds of people abandoned their schedules for the day to come out to see it. With New York situated halfway between the two edges of its breeding grounds in Scandinavia and Siberia, a wayward Arctic Warbler was not on the radar of any members of the New York birding community.
Ever since the small group had decided to adopt Randall’s Island as their birdwatching spot a few years ago, it had become clear just how productive the often overlooked island could be. But finding the first Arctic Warbler to be spotted in the eastern continental United States was still quite the shock. One member of the group related that he nearly passed out after realizing what they were looking at.
What exactly they were looking at, though, initially wasn’t quite clear. The Arctic Warbler belongs to the Phylloscopus genus, which is composed of several dozen songbirds which all look frustratingly identical to each other. Initially thought to be a Yellow-browed Warbler, better photos narrowed it down to either an Arctic Warbler or a Kamchatka Leaf Warbler. The best way to separate these two is by recording the bird’s calls and measuring the range of the respective sounds in kilohertz, and attempts to obtain audio recordings eventually proved successful enough to nail it down to species.
After it was reported on message boards the next day that the bird had stayed the night, I figured the hour-and-a-half trip could be worth it. By the time Randall’s Island came into view, it had been half an hour since the warbler had last disappeared in a canopy of trees 80 feet or so off the ground, with several dozen people on the ground all trying to spot the bird again while not toppling over backwards. The collective creativity displayed itself in the wide varieties of strategies employed. Some craned their necks as high as they could until exhaustion forced them to drop their heads. Others chose to stand on a hill several dozen feet away which offered an easier viewing position for their neck, but which would make it less likely that they would see the bird. Still others simply lay their backs on the ground and raised their eyes toward the heavens.
The ones who had already seen it were reminiscing with one another and comparing pictures, and it felt as if people were waiting for someone else to find the bird. The demographic of the crowd was noteworthy — rather than the stereotypical binocular-clad senior citizen, the average person there was in their thirties and carried an oversized camera. After an hour of casual searching, I came across several songbirds ducking in and out of cover at the very top of a tree set slightly apart from the White Garden. One of them was a bit smaller than the others, and I could only catch a glimpse right before it flew behind a leaf. 20 seconds later and every single clinching characteristic of the Phylloscopus was in plain sight. Several minutes later, a small group was being treated to incredible views of the Phylloscopus. It was a shame none of us were able to get any pictures as it flitted around some bare branches, but everyone could feel the excitement.
After confirming with others that we were all confident in the identification, I felt comfortable putting my head down to put out the message on Discord that it had been tracked down at last, and with that the Phylloscopus disappeared in the leaves. Within five minutes, over one hundred people had gathered and the battle to find it yet again had begun, cameras worth several thousand dollars aimed at the sky like cannons. But it had slipped away for the final time. Later that day, the audio clips that had originally helped identify the bird were published, confirming that it had been identified to species, much to the relief of those who saw it — an Arctic Warbler, the first-ever sighting of the bird in New York State.
That a four-inch songbird could travel halfway across the world and find temporary refuge in an urban metropolis like New York seemed shocking at first, but after seeing it in person was it easy to appreciate how many times these types of things may have happened without anyone noticing. The New York metro area is one of the most heavily urbanized places in the world, yet there are whales within sight of Long Island beaches when conditions are right and Northern Lights visible some years from the Bronx.
Quite honestly, the Arctic Warbler looks rather boring — show it to the average person and their reaction would likely be a shrug of indifference. But for a moment, as the stream of birdwatchers running toward the bird turned into a flood, I felt only pity for the parents watching their kids playing soccer, just standing by a wire fence and looking on — while we were here recognizing and enjoying something that we will most likely never see again.
Photo Credit: Unsplash