You are browsing the archives of 2007 September.

Today I had the full day free to bird the environs of New York City, so, of course, the winds stayed out of the south and no new migrants came in for my birding enjoyment. But Mike, my bird-blogging cohort, was free to do some birding, and, even better (no offense Mike), the American [...]

I’ve just spent a rather interesting morning wandering round the John Heinz Wildlife Refuge in Philly (a trip report is coming soon) before working a flight back home to the UK in the early evening. Under cloudless skies (after a somewhat foggy start) I’d found some great birds, including such Nearctic beauties as Parula Warbler, [...]

Mike’s post in the “Latest News” section on the homepage (which basically was about the drowning of 36 albatrosses on the hooks of a single long-line fishing vessel) reminded me of a post I wrote on my old blog last May that made a connection between tuna sandwiches and the severe collapse in the world’s [...]

A recent evening saw me birding with Will at Peebles Island and we had not seen nearly enough birds. We were hoping to track down migrants fueling up for their flight south and had mostly found Black-capped Chickadees. Normally in the fall this is a great thing as, at least around here, “to find warblers [...]

Each year the League of Conservation Voters puts out a non-partisan list of the 12 most despicably anti-environment congresspeople. According to Daily Kos, of last year’s 12 only 4 were reelected, and only 3 of those will be running again in ‘08!

Old goatherds swear how all night long they hear
The warning whirr and burring of the bird
Who wakes with darkness and till dawn works hard
Vampiring dry of milk each great goat udder…
Shudder… excuse me while I interrupt this daring verse, entitled Goatsucker by Sylvia Plath, to explain why it is apropos of the newest I and [...]

The Eurasian Collared-Dove is a (surprise!) Eurasian species that was introduced in the Bahamas, spread to Florida, and has slowly but surely expanded its range north and west across the southeastern United States. It is a still-rare visitor to New York but one was reported recently in Port Crane, a small town in New [...]

Here we are, at least those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, at the tail end of a long, lovely summer. Today is particularly gorgeous in NYC and tomorrow should be even better.  Irving Berlin best captured the power of sunny optimism by conjuring cloudless horizons and azure songbirds. Here’s wishing you blue skies for [...]

A single longline vessel fishing in New Zealand was responsible for the deaths of 36 albatrosses, including 12 Chatham Albatrosses, a Critically Endangered species more threatened than the Mountain Gorilla, Giant Panda, or Snow Leopard. Considering that, according to BirdLife International, 19 of the world’s 22 species of albatross are now threatened with extinction, unregulated [...]

Joan Collins, based out of northern New York, is an active member of many Empire State birding organizations. An ardent naturalist, licensed guide, and Adirondack Forty-Sixer, Joan also enjoys writing and has published many journal, magazine, and newspaper articles on wildlife topics including several species accounts in the upcoming edition of The Atlas of Breeding [...]