Sunday, January 10, 2010

Day 10--NYC


I arrived yesterday evening into New York City, more specifically, Brooklyn, where my son lives. I was coming off a bit of a slow birding day because it is so cold that much of the fresh water ponds are frozen, and even flowing water is not totally open. My day began at Port Mahon in Delaware at sunrise (photo at top). I was looking for short eared and long eared owls there and at Bombay Hook NWR but found none.

From there I drove about 2.5 hours over to one of the country's great birding locations--Cape May, NJ. There was enough open water at the Cape May lighthouse that a few birds were feeding, including a male eurasian wigeon, a fairly hard to find bird. I drove on up the coast toward NYC, stopping at Barnegat lighthouse where I walked out the jetty in a very brisk wind to see what was around. Lots of harlequin and long-tailed ducks, red-breasted mergansers, surf scoters, brant, and 1 purple sandpiper made the walk worthwhile.

I then headed further north to a small place named Califon, NJ where a barnacle goose has returned with 100's of canada geese for the past 2 winters. I had tried last year to see this bird but the day I stopped in it was not around. Yesterday though it was sitting as pretty as it could be on the water surrounded by a slew of canada geese. This makes my 3rd new life bird of 2010. Day 9's birding added a total of 11 new species for the year.

Last night my son and I tried out a pizza place called Franny's located on Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn. Being Saturday evening, it was totally jammed. We waited for 30 minutes but then got a good table next to the kitchen with its wood fired oven. The appetizers--a plate of coppa, pancetta and soppressata, and a puntarelle salad--were superb. The sausage pizzas were quite good, but having lived in Florence, Italy, we both agreed we had even better pizza there. So tonight we are going to La Pizza Fresca in Manhattan to try its pizza. Stay tuned!

8 comments:

  1. Chris, This is Brenda. We had dinner with Ckay last night and she gave us your blog link. This is amazing! You must be having a great time, I love your blog and look forward to reading more of what you find. Take Care!

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  2. Beautiful sunrise ~ is that snow on the beach?! I like your new miles posted section. xox

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  3. Loved the pictures and the stories of your adventures so far! Looking for more food descriptions and stuff! Gayle

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  4. wow, the new photo at the top of the blog is great--did you actually take it?!

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  5. J--I know you find it hard to believe that your father might take a good photo, but in fact I did. That said, I have decided that I need to get a camera with a zoom so that I can get more bird pictures.

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  6. Puntarelle is an Italian green radicchio that is less bitter than the red radicchio we see here in the US.

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  7. damn, you actually want a camera? caleb and i talked about getting you one for christmas..his opinion was that the camera on your phone was good enough though. grr. you can have my old camera and buy me a new one? :)

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