…is an upstate New York native, hailing from the the small town of Saugerties, which is nestled nicely between the mighty Hudson River and the scenic Catskill Mountains.

Currently Corey resides in Queens, the best of all the five boroughs of New York City. He lives with the love of his life, Daisy, whom he met after a Democratic Socialists of America-Youth Section meeting while at college at SUNY-Binghamton way back in 1998, and their young son, Desmond, who is fortunate enough to have Shearwater as a middle name. All three humans are tolerated, but barely, by the two indoor cats that own them, Hunter and B.B.

Corey came late to the world of birding, discovering his passion for birds when a Green Heron showed itself to him and Daisy. Since the trigger bird (which was seen in May 2005) Corey has been on a high-speed course from bird to bird, garnering an impressive 316 birds in a New York State Big Year in 2007 while adding as many birds as he could to his ABA Area life list.  In 2008 he was working on seeing 250 birds without the aid of a car and fell short but had a good time trying.  Last year Corey decided to relax a bit and just keep a plain old year list, though he ended up seeing more birds in 2009 than in any other year!  He finally started keeping a world life list last year as well.  This year Corey is once again keeping an ordinary year list, though his goal of reaching 1,000 birds on his world life list (he started the year with 779 species) should make things interesting.

Because of simple geography most of Corey’s birding has taken place in New York State and the northeastern United States in general, though near-yearly trips to southern California have allowed him to add many cool birds to his life list. He looks forward to eventually birding in every state in the nation!

A trip to Germany in October 2007 led Corey to the revelation that there are even more birds on other continents and since that trip he has visited and birded both Honduras and Kazakhstan!

When he’s not birding, which isn’t often, Corey works as a business representative for a service workers union, reads, blogs, wanders around New York City, gets angry about politics, and spends time with his family.