ML614702934
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
- Playback
- Not specified
Observation details
Mega and first Kings County record. Bird found yesterday by Sam Vasen but reported as an early Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Any hummingbird in the doldrums of winter raises the antennae, however, and especially in February, when there are almost no remaining flowering plants offering nectar. This is generally around the time of year when western vagrant rarity hummingbirds are presumed to die off, there being nothing at all for them to feed on. Really any hummingbird at all in New York in February is a quite remarkable record. Anthony F alerted the RBA that a hummer had been reported from the park yesterday, noting that it could very well have been misidentified and be something exciting. The bird was refound and photographed this morning by Tripper, who narrowed it down to Selasphorus sp. and got the word out. By the time we got there twenty or so observers were on the scene, but the bird had not been seen again. There was, to my surprise, plenty of flowering honeysuckle (probably invasive Japanese Honeysuckle) on the steep slope between the parking lot near the bird feeders and the trail leading down and east around the top of the lake towards the skating rink. It was in this honeysuckle that the bird had been seen. We fanned out and it wasn’t long before we spotted a flash of green blur skimming over the top of some shrubs at the northeast end of the parking lot, where we refound the bird and the attached recording was made. We got nothing more in the way of photographs, however, and by the time others arrived on the scene it seemed the bird had again hummed off elsewhere. Soon after, about midway along the top edge of the slope, Jason (? I think, I hope I don’t have the name wrong) spotted it downslope towards the lake in a large patch of still-green vegetation. Here observers had the bird both from above and below. My photographs here are taken from the bottom of the hill, where the bird gave excellent looks. Others, notably Ryan and Ant, got spread-tail photos that should eliminate Allen’s Hummingbird (fiendishly difficult to separate). The following notes relate to the audio and AI/machine learning identification efforts: I made the attached recording in Merlin. Coincidentally, because I had been using the app yesterday to experiment with identification of some South American recordings I had on my laptop, I had turned off the location permission for the app. Without access to my location, Merlin correctly reported Blue Jay, American Robin, White-throated Sparrow, and Red-tailed Hawk, and incorrectly returned “Anna’s Hummingbird.” Notably, it only interpreted a few tiny quick pairs of vocalizations as Anna’s. I suspect with the GPS on it would not have returned any hummingbird at all, despite the loud and persistent series of tikking notes. Perhaps more interestingly, once home I played varying segments of the recording out of my laptop to the BirdNET app (also with GPS access suppressed). One section returned, in order of likely accuracy based on the audio, White-eared Hummingbird (“Uncertain,”—the second highest “grade” this app provides—“Almost Certain” is the highest), followed by Rufous Hummingbird (also “Uncertain”) and lastly by Allen’s Hummingbird (“Highly Uncertain”). For a subsequent, and I think clearer section of the recording, it returned in first place Rufous Hummingbird (“Uncertain”) and then Fox Sparrow, which I do not and did not hear but is obviously possible.
Technical information
- Recorder
- Microphone
- Accessories
- Original file size
- 3.28 MB