A Common Grackle has lately been foraging for food and bathing in a flooded part of the path leading to the open athletic fields in Inwood Hill Park. I’ve observed it splashing in the puddle and dipping berries into the cool water. Many other birds have taken to this large puddle, including Mallards, European Starlings, and Grey Catbirds. The flooded pool is particularly popular with the Icterids, the family of 108 species that includes orioles and blackbirds.
Prior to the twentieth century, the semicircular field adjacent to the Salt Marsh was marshland. Today in the park, a marsh regeneration area represents what that field may have looked like. Furthermore, in days long ago, a vast network of underground natural springs flowed through the park, and residents would then collect the clear water with old cisterns and wells. Local historians and ecologists have extensively researched the history of the natural springs here. *
One of the natural springs, at least, is still functioning, spilling out of a forested land next to the field and flowing down the drainage swells along the park path. Over the past few months, the springs have filled a low depressed area of the path, causing park users to detour by walking up and around the puddle on a raised section of lawn before resuming their journey. It’s often a muddy mess. * See Update below.
The puddle has persisted for such a long time now that one wonders if the original marshlands and natural springs are trying to reclaim the area again. Nature, as it has been said, finds a way. Conversations around the puddle have bubbled up, with passersby offering their own reasons why the puddle has persisted for these long months now. Some say excessive rainfall, while others blame poor drainage maintenance. One person I spoke with speculated that the 4.5 magnitude earthquake on April 15, 2024, one of the largest in the Northeast in recent memory, might have reopened the underground springs. This is my favorite speculation.
Whatever the reason for the springs to spring forth, the birds of Inwood gather there. Prior to the appearance of the large path puddle, they have long found comfort in the existing remnant of springs near the park path. In the hottest weather, they flock to the tiny pools to drink and to bathe. With recent rains, the whole network of springs and puddles sometimes swells into a little stream that empties down into the tidal marshes.
The grackle seems particularly at home here. While these birds adapt to a variety of environments and forage on most anything, they thrive in marshes, wetlands and swamps adjacent to open woodlands.
Fun facts about grackles – they can crack open nuts with their strong beaks, and they have the mineral magnetite in their heads and neck. This mineral allows them to use the magnetic fields of Planet Earth to navigate. (Source: For the science, see “Magnetoreception in birds,” by Roswitha Wiltschko and Worlfgang Wiltschko. September 4, 2019. Journal of the Royal Society Interface.)
Cover photo: Common Grackle at the flooded path. June 3, 2024. 8:08 a.m.
* See the blog post “Inwood’s Long Forgotten Springs and Wells” on Cole Thompson’s My Inwood website from December 14, 2011. The article focus on a man named James Reuel Smith who rode a bicycle around Northern Manhattan and the Bronx starting in 1897 to document the springs.
* UPDATE: June 18, 2024. In the middle of the afternoon of June 18, 2024, I observed workers from the NYC Parks Department on site with heavy machinery to drain the big puddle. Still, many local bird species gathered at the natural springs area nearby. See the June 2024 Sightings page for a slideshow of images featuring the birds at the springs area.
* UPDATE: June 20, 2024. The path puddle has reappeared, replenished by the water from the natural springs a short distance away.
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June 2024 Sightings
See the June 2024 page for updated sightings.
Birds of Inwood 
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