ML612025588
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
Observation details
I was interested to know what the bird is eating and why it is hanging out specifically where it is. The much reported "bare ginkgo" tree at the corner of Hudson and Bank has produced a heavy crop of fruit, much of which is rotting on the ground, which in turn is attracting large numbers of calliphorine blow flies (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/193456027), which are fairly large, slow-moving flies active on warmer days through much of the winter in our region. The ATFL was actively flycatching for these flies (see fourth image below) in the limbs of a Siberian elm that still retains many of its leaves next to the ginkgo. And based on reports that the bird has been flycatching on the nearby building fire escapes, I suspect that the flies are roosting on the brick facade to catch the morning sunshine and warm their body temperatures before descending to feed on the ginkgo fruit below. (I've witnessed this behavior in blow flies often during cooler months.) This bird shows a very distinctive tail pattern for ATFL, with dark brown tips to R2-6 that wrap all the way around the ends of the rectrices and up the edges of the inner webs (see second image). I did not hear it vocalize at all.
Technical information
- Model
- NIKON D7100
- Lens
- 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-6.3
- ISO
- 800
- Focal length
- 300 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire
- f-stop
- f/6.3
- Shutter speed
- 1/1250 sec
- Dimensions
- 2421 pixels x 1614 pixels
- Original file size
- 1.4 MB