A.W. Stanley Park Oct. 19, 2025 Field Trip Report
'Halkin, Sylvia (Emeritus)' via AllHAS
A.W. Stanley Park trip report, October 19, 2025
At 9:30 a.m. 14 of us met up at A.W. Stanley Park, and after brief introductions and Robert Rickman generously volunteering to keep track of and submit the e-bird list for our trip (thank you, Robert!), we heard “chuff” calls from the trees at the back of the parking lot. Oho, a Red-bellied Woodpecker was moving around on bare upper branches of a tree. It stayed there long enough for us to practice our bird-location-describing skills, to do some comparisons of binoculars, and to have us looking in the right direction when a Pileated Woodpecker flew by, white wing spots flashing.
We walked along the west edge of the marsh and stream, and saw a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, a Yellow-rumped Warbler, Song Sparrows, American Robins, a Northern Flicker, and perched and flying Mourning Doves and Blue Jays. We heard Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers, another Red-bellied Woodpecker, and a Carolina Wren. We also got quick looks at sparrows we couldn’t identify, and two gulls high overhead. In an open area with cattails and grasses in the middle and trees on the edges, a Blue Jay chased a calling Pileated Woodpecker back and forth in our full view (probably not the same one we’d recently seen, as it had flown off in a different direction: it’s an unusual treat to get good looks at one Pileated Woodpecker, let alone two!).
In the orchard area we saw at least 10 Cedar Waxwings eating berries in a Juniper = Eastern Red Cedar tree. Tracey noticed that one of them, instead of the usual yellow band across the tail feather tips, had a bright orange band. Thank you for guiding us all to see that bird! The most likely cause of the orange coloration is thought to be Cedar Waxwings eating the red berries of Morrow’s honeysuckle, an introduced ornamental species, as their tail feathers are growing; red pigment from the berries is then deposited as the feather tips grow, along with the normal yellow pigment.
Near the bridge over the spillway between the marsh and the pond, a group of 30 or more Cedar Waxwings were quite actively flying within and between juniper trees. All the Cedar Waxwings I saw looked like young of the year, with mottled or somewhat streaked breasts, and lacking red waxy tips on their wing feathers, like the Cedar Waxwings in the photos Annyta Vizard sent to the AllHAS email list (thank you, Annyta!). The Birds of the World species account reports that in central New York, adults may migrate south a month before young of the year, a likely explanation for the absence of adults in our sightings. Cedar Waxwings without active nests seem to move around widely at all times of year to find fruit crops. They can be found in Connecticut year-round, but are in the northern part of the species range (which extends into Canada) only in the breeding season, and in the southern part (from the southern U.S. through Central America) only at colder times of year; they don’t reliably return to the same breeding or wintering sites, so not much seems to be known about whether the birds we saw are likely to have been hatched locally, or are staying for the winter, or were just passing through on migration.
At the pond, we heard a Belted Kingfisher and saw a group of 2 white adult and 4! grayer young-of-the-year Immature Mute Swans, Mallards, a Black Duck, and a Ring-necked Duck, as well as sunning turtles. Those in our group who could stay longer got to visit the Traprock Ridge cliff overlooking the pond, and to spot a flyover Red-tailed Hawk.
Other birds we saw or heard well enough to identify were a flying Cooper’s Hawk, at least one Canada Goose in flight, European Starlings, Black-capped Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, House Sparrows, White-throated Sparrows, and a Northern Cardinal. We had a total of 28 bird species, including the (likely Ring-billed) gulls.
The wind was calm, temperatures ranged from the upper 50s to mid 60s, and cloud cover varied, with some sunny stretches. We had a good time sharing what we were seeing with one another: I am grateful for the excellent bird spotters and location-describers who were with us, and for everyone’s congeniality!
Thanks to Jeff Benoit for his photo below, of most of our group as we walked past some flashy trees!
Submitted by Sylvia Halkin, Trip Leader
