Finding the Painted Bunting, or: Prospect Park Birding 101

The Prospect Park Painted Bunting
photo by Rob Bate, head of the Brooklyn Bird Club
“This is what we call silly season.”
Rob Bate, head of the Brooklyn Bird Club, was explaining to me exactly what time of year it was for the local birding community. And, looking around us, “silly season” seemed a pretty apt description. On this unseasonably warm December morning, there were at least 30 people clustered tightly together on the roof of Prospect Park’s Lefrak Center; e