Yellow-breasted Chats in Lower Manhattan - 12th November

This has been a bumper year for Yellow-breasted Chats, with birds turning up all over the place, including Marshlands, Central Park and several sites on Long Island. Most have been short-stayers (hence my failure to connect), but this week two tiny little patches of green in downtown Manhattan hosted one each, for several days. Having no family commitments on Saturday morning I headed down to see if I could finally catch up with one of these enigmatic 'warblers'.

 My first stop was the graveyard at Trinity Church on the corner of Broadway and Wall St. This was the same spot I had a Connecticut Warbler last year. I found the chat quite quickly, but there isn't too much cover for it to hide in! It was a little flighty, but eventually settled down for a few pictures.

If this brute is a warbler, then so am I, but no matter. The Sibley Guide that is my preferred source illustrates the eastern and western races (but doesn't give the scientific name for the ssp. so I had to find that elsewhere. The National Geographic guide since you ask). This is clearly the eastern race, Icteria virens virens. The western ssp. I. v. auricollis has a white malar stripe, which this doesn't.

Sibley also illustrates the male as having a monotone, all-black bill, while the female has a two-tone bill, pale below dark above. (though no mention of this is made in the text of any of my North American field guides). I see a monotone bill, not black though. I do see dark lores, but not the black I was expecting Maybe a juvenile bird, but no idea of sex.

The individual in the tiny pocket park called Millenium Park, a few blocks further north is quite different. The lores are clearly black, and the bill is strongly two-tone, and blunter. I'd say the sex is certainly female, maybe a first-year bird, or could even be an adult.

In the same park was this Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. It has made this tiny spot its home as every tree had neat rows of holes drilled in them.

First-year Hermit Thrush, also using the gravestones in Trinity Church graveyard as a perch.

Slate-coloured Junco