Nassau County, New York, March 2009 After having fully explored the trail around the West Pond at Jamaica Bay, we four bird bloggers agreed to load up Patrick’s car and head over to Jones Beach to see what kind of birds we could find there and some other locations in Nassau County.  Carrie had been [...]

Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Refuge, March 2009 It was at about 1:30 AM on Saturday morning that I startled awake and found myself sitting in an empty subway car in an unfamiliar location.  I stepped out of the train and my foggy brain was just realizing that I was at the end of the E [...]

Will and I had spoken on Sunday and agreed to go owling on Tuesday night. We had both failed at checking off Eastern Screech-Owl or Great Horned Owl on our New York lists so far in 2007 so we figured we’d take a shot at tracking down either silent nocturnal killer. Before Will picked me [...]

We are currently filming in Botswana. What this land-locked country lacks in endemic birds it more than makes up for in accessibility of tough species, numbers of birds and the overall wildlife experience. I will be writing a series of detailed posts on this magnificent country but wanted to share a few images captured by [...]

Yesterday evening, Sunday evening, I had plans to get to bed, wake up on Monday morning, and go to work. That changed when I got on the computer and learned that a birder way up in northern New York, on the Tug Hill Plateau, had reported a heck of a bird coming to her feeder. Nancy [...]

As I have done all too infrequently of late I spent almost an hour yesterday at Forest Park’s waterhole where intrepid Queens birders feed the birds all winter long. Because I have a two-year-old and a job in New Jersey I have not been one of those making sure the birds get their servings of [...]

I’ve been traveling for the last little while, a trip down south on business followed by another throughout Nunavut. The logistics of traveling in the Arctic means that nothing is straightforward. This past week, for three days of meetings in Cambridge Bay, I was on the road for eight days including a foray into the [...]

Maybe Staten Island isn’t all bad. After all, I recently tracked down my first-for-New York State White-winged Dove in the forgotten borough of New York City. The bird has been coming to a private feeder – where a young birder named Anthony Ciancimino happens to live – for well over a week now.  White-winged Doves, [...]

For at least 12 years now there has been a lake in Broome. It was hidden for several years and we could easily access it from just through our back fence, but as new roads were built it became more visible. It is not there all year, as it fills up from the rain water [...]

Southern Florida offers many unique wintering birds, but perhaps none more so then the sparrows that call different parts of Florida their winter homes. Tom Dunkerton tipped me off to an area on the Black Merritt National Wildlife Refuge where some of my target birds can be seen. Tom spends most of his daylight hours [...]

This is the final of three posts about the day I spent birding central Florida with Doug Gochfeld back in January at the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival. You can read the first one, about our time at Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area, here, and the second, about birding Joe Overstreet Road and Kissimmee [...]

After our successful run through Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area, Doug and I were confident we could find some more of our target birds along Joe Overstreet Road, a dirt road that runs from Canoe Creek Road to Lake Kissimmee in Osceola, Florida, which is a bit south of Kissimmee and St. Cloud. Birds we [...]

It seemed liked an innocuous idea. Seven birders, a boat for hire, and a cruise around lower New York Harbor and vicinity looking for good birds. What could possibly go wrong? After all, the forecast was for mostly sunny skies, light winds, and no big waves. Therefore the seven of us who climbed aboard a [...]

On Saturday, 28 January, while I was at the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival, Doug Gochfeld and I made our way to central Florida for most of a day’s birding, looking for the specialty species of that region. Our first stop, in the early morning, was Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area, south of Kissimmee [...]

It has been almost two weeks since the text message that said “Gray Kingbird Viera Wetlands.” The person who sent the text was the same person who sent the text message that had sent me running after a Grace’s Warbler less than a month earlier. How does a single birder manage to make me drop [...]

One of the nicest things about staying with my grandparents in Sydney is the proximity of their house to part of the Sydney Harbour National Park. This park, which protects scattered headlands, bays and islands of natural bush, is located around the entrance to Sydney Harbour. Dobroyd Head, the section in Balgowlah near where my [...]

On 26 January 2012, my first full day in Florida for the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival, I had a mission for the evening. My mission was simple in theory – to see, or at least hear, a Black Rail.  But, in practice, the mission became much more difficult. Black Rails are among the most [...]

Back when I was trying to figure out what I should do during my time at the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival I was advised by Doug Gochfeld to check out “the Gull spectacle on the beach at Daytona Beach Shores.” Intrigued, I looked into it, and learned that enormous amounts of gulls feed [...]

Today I shall weave a tale of dispair. A tale of jealousy. Of hopelessness. Of anger, fear, aggressioon….the dark side are they. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your…..ahem. Let me start from the beginning. It was the year 2010. One Seagull Steve was living in San Francisco, on a [...]

In Bergen County, New Jersey’s northeasternmost county, there are quite a few small county parks that are popular with dog-walkers, joggers, parents looking for somewhere to take their kids, and teenagers looking for places that their parents aren’t. A category of person that I have not yet met in one of Bergen County’s parks is [...]