For the past few weeks, an unusual visitor has been perched in the treetops high above Prospect Park’s lake. The Anhinga, also known as the Devil Bird, is a large waterbird with a snake-like neck that is typically found in the swampy southeastern corner of the country. But, for the first time since 1992, the bird has been spotted in New York—right here in Brooklyn’s Backyard.

Located along the Atlantic Flyway, with more than 250 migratory and resident bird species spotted each year, Prospect Park is a long beloved birdwatching haven. “The park’s 585 acres are a critical life-saving space for birds. Prospect Park is a rest stop full of food and water thanks, in part, to Prospect Park’s lake and watercourse,” says Peter Dorosh, a Prospect Park Alliance Eco Zone Gardener and avid birder who recently spotted the Anhinga himself. “Prospect Park was the lucky beneficiary of such an awesome sighting: Brooklyn’s only lake  caught the Anhinga’s eye.”

For members of the birdwatching community, this is an exceptional spotting outside its usual migratory path (which for the Anhinga historically reaches as far north as the Carolinas). The bird’s arrival was so unexpected, it was even featured in The New York Times.

For Dorosh and Prospect Park Alliance’s crew of Eco Zone Gardeners and Forest Ecologist, which works to restore and sustain the park’s natural areas, the Anhinga’s arrival highlights an important aspect of their job: ensuring the park’s landscape is a healthy breeding and foraging habitat for birds and other wildlife—both expected and unexpected.

“Birds stop in, refuel, rest and then continue onward for the greater breeding territories in the northern United States and Canada,” explains Dorosh. To Dorosh and Prospect Park Alliance, the priority is ensuring the birds find what they need to thrive in the park. “It’s important to plant native trees and shrub species because these plants attract insects—particularly moths and caterpillars, as they are the soft food needed to feed baby birds and fledglings,” he says.

The Alliance also focuses largely on mitigating habitat loss. “We do our part to remove the invasive plants and replace them with native plants,” says Dorosh. “This greatly benefits natural habitats and restores food webs that include the pollinating wildflowers, grasses and fruiting shrubs that are essential for insects.”

The team strives to create and maintain habitats that send the right signals to any new bird species that may unexpectedly arrive due to the changing climate. “Birds know if a breeding territory will ensure the survival of their species,” Dorosh says. “If we have enough native trees, birds will coexist with other birds and become specialized in what they eat—that’s how evolution intended it.”

As anyone familiar with the variety and abundance of species in Prospect Park knows, there’s plenty to go around. “Warblers and flycatchers eat insects. Cardinals and Blue Jays eat berries and nuts. Sparrows eat grass seeds, and Hawks are carnivores who help keep the rodent population at bay,” explains Dorosh. “We have it all in Prospect Park, as long as we maintain the habitats to become and stay healthy and native.”

Interested in catching a glimpse of the Devil Bird? Learn about bird watching opportunities in Prospect Park.

Learn more about Prospect Park Alliance’s work to sustain the environment and how you can help support the plants, wildlife and community of Brooklyn’s Backyard.

A key focus of the non-profit Prospect Park Alliance’s mission is to sustain and restore the park’s natural areas, including Brooklyn’s last remaining forest and only Lake, which suffered from significant erosion and neglect prior to the Alliance’s founding. Keeping the park green and vibrant is important to both humans and birds alike. During the fall migration, one of the peak birdwatching times of year, we sat down to talk to Alliance EcoZone Gardener and avid birder Peter Dorosh, recognizing the park’s important role as a haven for more than 200 species of birds.

“The most exciting season for birdwatching is now and in the spring, the biannual migrations when birds travel to and from their breeding grounds throughout North America,” Dorosh said. When asked why Brooklyn’s Backyard is a great place for birdwatching, he said: “Because it’s a contained green space surrounded by urban dwellings, birds migrating see a dark spot during their migratory travels at night (recognizing it as a green space), and come down from flight for shelter and food.”

The Alliance’s landscape management team, which includes gardeners, a forester and also a forest ecologist, focuses on sustaining our natural areas with native plantings that are specifically geared to providing food and shelter for birds and other wildlife.

Prospect Park takes on even more importance for birds in light of a recent study that found steep, long-term losses across virtually all groups of birds in the U.S. and Canada. How to nurture birds in Brooklyn’s Backyard? Please sustain our woodlands by staying on path, and not climbing or hanging structures on our trees. Have a dog?  Please keep your pet on leash, and on path, in woodland areas. Dorosh explained that birds, whether they are nesting, breeding or migrating, see dogs as a threat. “Most particularly during nesting season, the parent birds get unnecessarily stressed and hyper-vigilant in trying to protect their young even if the nest is high above.” Even if birds are not directly attacked by dogs, just the sight of dogs can send birds into a panic, causing unnecessary stress during this critical time in their survival.

To learn more about birdwatching, connect with our partners at the Brooklyn Bird Club. They offer free, year-round programming to novices and avid birdwatchers alike. Find out more about bird watching in Prospect Park on our website.

Help spread the word about good park stewardship: Dogs are allowed off leash in the park from 6 am to 9 am and 9 pm to 1 am on the Long Meadow (not ballfields), Nethermead, and the Peninsula Meadow. At all other times and locations, dogs should be on their leashes. Birds and park wildlife will thank you!

Bird migration season is in full swing here in Brooklyn, and there’s no better place to see the hundreds of species passing through than Prospect Park. In recent years, Prospect Park Alliance has made an effort to reduce invasive plant species and encourage the growth of native trees, shrubs, flowers and grasses—and our feathered friends could not be happier about it. Native plants produce seeds and berries, and host a variety of local insects, all of which our local and migratory birds love to snack on. Head into the park during this migration season for a chance to see a few of the more than 200 bird species that use Prospect Park as a rest stop. We suggest these park birding hotspots:

Lookout Hill
Lookout Hill is the highest peak in Prospect Park, part of the Terminal Moraine left by glaciers in the last ice age that extends through Brooklyn. Prospect Park Alliance’s horticulturalists and Natural Resources Crew have been hard at work maintaining Lookout Hill’s natural spaces, including the Butterfly Meadow. The geography of Lookout Hill, combined with the abundance of native food sources, make this a top-notch destination for birds (and fellow birdwatchers) during migration season. Find a variety of songbirds including many species of warblers, as well as raptors enjoying the vista. 

Prospect Park Lake
Whether you’re walking the shores of the Peninsula, or staring through binoculars at Music Island, Prospect Park Lake—Brooklyn’s only lake—is a fabulous destination for birdwatching. Since the opening of the LeFrak Center at Lakeside in 2013, this area of the park has enjoyed a dedicated crew of Alliance gardeners who maintain the plantings and the facility’s green roof. The 55-acre lake is a year-round destination for waterfowl and shorebirds, and migration season means you’re sure to see something spectacular no matter which way you look.

Vale of Cashmere
In 2012, Prospect Park lost over 500 throughout the park due to Hurricane Sandy, with 50 alone in the Vale of Cashmere. Thanks to grants from the National Parks Service through the Hurricane Sandy Disaster Relief Assistance Grant Program for Historic Properties, the Alliance was able to hire a dedicated crew to restore this area of the park. Over the course of years, the crew removed damage, used a popular goat team to clear invasive species, and in 2017 planted over 20,000 native plants and shrubs. The result? A bird haven in a quiet corner of the park. Head here to watch songbirds enjoying the landscape, and discover a part of Prospect Park you may never have seen before.

Check out the birdwatching page on our website for more information on birdwatching in Prospect Park, and visit the Brooklyn Bird Club website for the latest bird sightings.