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Autumn is a season of transitions and migrations, a slow descent from summer’s heat to winter’s cold. Sometimes blustery and rainy, sometimes warm and sunny, it is the second best season for birders, only beaten by spring. One of my favorite parts of fall is the long, drawn out duck migration, which seems to never [...]

The Chiffchaff Phylloscopus collybita is an abundant species with an impressive global range that stretches from the West of Europe across Siberia to Russia’s far East, just falling short of reaching the Bering Straits by a laughable 800 kilometres, a fact one individual apparently found too awkward to bear. As its scientific name plainly shows, [...]

Every spring the wood-warblers come north bedecked in breeding finery and every autumn they head back south again in more muted colors. The trickle of migrants becomes a flood and then slows to a trickle again, leaving us New Yorkers with a host of Butterbutts and few other wood-warblers to tide us over until spring. [...]

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking successive autumns. – George Eliot Indeed….very much so. I think most birders can understand this sentiment, whether you care for the weather or not. As birders know, weather, going back to school, football, [...]

Labor Day weekend has passed, the kids are back in school, and it is now (un)officially autumn in the United States no matter how high the mercury rises.  Of course actual autumn does not begin until after the autumnal equinox which is on 23 September this year.  But try telling that to the birds, some [...]

Both of the kinglet species of North America are known as fast-moving, frenetic, and friendly little creatures, that is, if one doesn’t mind risking charges of anthropomorphism by using an adjective like “friendly.”  Me, I’m more than glad to call kinglets friendly, mostly because every time I hear their thin call notes I get a [...]

This fall has been good to me in terms of getting good looks at migrant wood-warblers.  Whether I was watching birds at Alley Pond Park, Kissena Park, Central Park, along the coast, or in Bryant Park, the not-as-brightly-colored-as-they-are-in-spring-but-still-pretty-nice members of North America’s most sought after family of birds made seeking them out rather easy for [...]

Blackpoll Warblers are one of the species for which the term “confusing fall warbler” was made.  Their namesake black cap is entirely lacking by the time they start their epic journey south and they look like just another greenish-yellowish bird.  A close examination will reveal the streaking on the back that distinguishes Dendorica striata from [...]

Today, Thursday, the 23rd of September 2010, is the autumnal equinox in the northern hemisphere, otherwise known as the first day of fall.*  Our night and day will be as close to equal length as will happen all year.  And while the sun has crossed the celestial equator on its way south many of the [...]

While out and about of late watching wood-warblers, vireos, and other neotropical migrants pausing on their long journey south I have been enjoying watching the different foraging strategies and foods that different species and even individuals of the same species use.  Their migration is long and full of perils and at each stopover point the [...]

This fall was surprisingly great in Queens in terms of the fall foliage.  Brilliant yellows competed with rich reds for the eye’s attention and when a migrating bird paused in front of such colors, well, one could barely help but to gasp with wonder on occasion.  And though the species that are featured below are [...]