Mid-morning in Prospect Park on a drizzly December Wednesday, stillness reigned. But in the southeast corner of the grounds, residents -- feathered, shelled and winged -- detected a disturbance
"I did see a little movement just then," Brooklyn Bird Club president, Robert Bate, said, scanning the bushes with a pair of binoculars.
Rob and a flock of birders huddled around a clump of brush on the backside of the new Lefrak Center, aiming expensive cameras and more expensive binoculars into the thicket where they believed a painted bunting landed.
"It's probably the most colorful songbird in North America," Rob said, "and we have some really colorful songbirds."
It's probably also the first confirmed sighting of a male of this species in the Northeast. And birders, especially the man who first spotted this tri-colored Florida native, could not believe their lenses.
"Nearly just lost it over it," Rob said of the bird's original spotter.
That birder spied this painting bunting in the park, Sunday morning. He took some pictures to prove he saw it and then posted his sighting to Twitter.
"I was here within 15 minutes," Rob said.
It seems bird-Twitter is more active than one might've guessed.
"Nowadays," birder Tom Stephenson said, "birders are very connected to social media."
"At one point," Rob said, "there were 40, 45, maybe 50 birders here."
"Since I've seen the bird a lot," Tom said, "I didn't come right away, but some people did. And I knew it might be a mob scene, so I was like: OK, I'll wait."
Tom co-authored the Warbler Guide, owns the U.S. record for number of birds photographed in a 24-hour period and travels the world recording thousands of bird calls, which he then donates to the world's largest collection of such things at Cornell's Macaulay Library of Natural Sciences.
"There's a lot that's not known about bird vocalizations," Tom said.
While the appearance of this red, green and blue vagrant excited many bird-watchers, for Tom and Rob this bird in the bush was worth more in a couple of weeks -- during Audubon's annual Christmas bird-count -- than an infinite number of photos taken of it Wednesday.
"They ask, you know: 'Any unusual birds for Prospect Park?'" Rob said, imitating the MC of the Audubon bird-count's potluck. "And the hand goes up and says: 'We had a painted bunting.' That's good stuff for a birder."
For now, a bunting grows in Brooklyn. And while resident bird-brains may fail to understand the human commotion in their backyard, birders from the region migrate to Prospect Park for a glimpse of what they call "a rarity," while hobby leaders like Tom and Rob, selfishly, hope this painted bunting stays in Brooklyn through the holidays.
"Can't see anything now," Rob said, scanning the brush.
--MAC KING
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