The Great Snipe Hunt (part 1)

For the month of April, I've set out on a snipe hunt. Wilson's Snipe, an elusive shorebird, with camouflage so effective and cryptic that they're practically impossible to spot. There's more than one reason for the old jokes about snipe hunts: one can very well end up with a big weight or a long stand.

My first stop this weekend was at Van Cortlandt Park, on a morning bird walk by Nadir Souirgi. I was hoping the recent rains would make the park into a welcoming environment for snipe, but no such luck. There were the usual spring harbingers: robins everywhere, red-winged blackbirds making a racket in the marshes, white-throated sparrows popping in and out of the undergrowth, and by the bridge leading to the Old Putnam trail, a small flock (20 or so) of rusty blackbirds:

After that, I headed over to the New York Botanical Garden. Debbie Becker has been leading bird walks at NYBG for about 20 years. She had mentioned spotting a Wilson's Snipe during the previous week's walk, the first one she had ever seen at that location.

Well, no luck there either. Debbie was extraordinarily patient and methodical in using her binoculars to scan the marshes and wetlands at NYBG, but the snipe was either lying low or had simply moved on. The wind was roaring that day, though, so he might've been simply keeping under cover. Debbie was on the hunt for more than just the snipe, though: she went through a pine grove and came back with several fresh owl pellets, and after checking several pine groves and oak stands, we came across this great look:

A Great Horned Owl, male. Unfortunately some of the group got rather over-excited, and came right up to the owl, yammering away and taking cell phone pics. Eventually the owl flushed, and then, ominously, another raptor was flushed out of the valley where the owl had fled: a red-tailed hawk. That was it. Debbie shooed everyone out of the area, not wanting to precipitate a hawk/owl duel, which could very well lead to the exhaustion and death of both birds.

Other notable birds seen were a female hooded merganser and a belted kingfisher, both in the far distance. In keeping with all the other times I've seen a kingfisher, it's a truly wild bird, and it took off as soon as people came within fifty yards.

A nice coda to the weekend was a walk with my wife, Jess, through the Loch and the Ravine of Central Park. It was late Sunday afternoon, a beautiful spring day. I had the camera along, and it just so happened that a very obliging bird came right up to me, at eye-level no less, and let me tick another bird off the picture list, a yellow-bellied sapsucker.