Birds of the East River’s Abandoned Islands

I’m always interested in exploring the juxtaposition of the wild with human landscapes through my photography. In mid-July I had a cool opportunity to do that with Classic Harbor Line‘s Abandoned Islands of the East River sunset ecocruise with naturalist Gabriel Willow.

Black-crowned Night-Heron

Double-crested Cormorants

We sailed past both known and little known islands like U Thant Island, Roosevelt Island, Mill Rock, and North & South Brother Islands, catching glimpses of how birds are making use of these places, and learning fascinating facts and history along the way.⁠

Double-crested Cormorants

These are some of the scenes I captured throughout the evening. As you can see, so many cormorants!

Double-crested Cormorant

Black-crowned Night-Herons

And several juvenile night-herons and a fuzzy cormorant that looked almost ready to fledge.

Double-crested Cormorants

Gadwall

Great Egret

Not pictured: so many crows roosting, egret flybys, Osprey nests, and a juvenile gull trying to swallow a massive rat (I was inside the boat at the time and didn’t have my camera ready)!

NYC at Night

NYC at Night

And on the way back, we got to see NYC lit up at night. Not bad for a summer Sunday evening outing.