ML642274208

Observation details

Rare. Continuing, seen by many observers. Strong orange-and -gray face pattern, streaky back, strongly streaked breast , mostly pale. Have photos. Spent a very long time looking into the fenced-off maintenance area where the bird had been previously seen and photographed, without success. Hearing from two birders that they had seen it briefly from outside the park fence, I walked around to the outside and stood around the bike parking area, where I eventually spotted a streaky sparrow in the weeds along the outside of the fence and had a glimpse of its orange face. It went into the maintenance area, and I was able to flag down the other birders inside who were standing some little distance off and they were able to conform what I'd seen. Thankfully. And that was it for a long time. Eventually I retreated to a shady bench for a while, and then Layan reported on Discord that it was giving good views in the maintenance area. I hustled over in time to see it disappear back through the fence. However, it came back a few times at 10-minute intervals, moving very fast each time--running behind and under garbage bins, and across the ground, and along the wall at the fence and so on. Loyan and MBK pointed out that this is probably what they do all the time, but they're usually hidden by high grasses. Anyway, at the end with just me and Julius left, it ran along the wall outside the park, hopped up on a bicycle, and then, gloriously posed on a fencepost for a few seconds and I was able to actually get photographs. The it flew up a tree and apparently escaped to some scrub on the Manhattan Community College campus. Horrible, horrible little bird. ❤️❤️