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Christmas Bird Counts are a wonderful way to spend a cold December day.  Just imagine groups of birders, spread out across a fifteen-mile diameter circle, trying to count every single bird that they see or hear.  At the end of the day the birders gather together to report what they’ve found, brag about their rare [...]

In 1955 Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher published Wild America, the tale of their travels across North America, from park to park, and bird to bird.  Peterson had convinced Fisher to take the trip with him, partially to show Fisher the America that most tourists did not see, but, as Peterson confessed in the [...]

Though Mike has already put up a post about our Montezuma Muckrace experience so much happened during the loooong day of birding that there is plenty more to post.  It was a great day and Will, Jory and Mike were tenacious teammates: it’s unusual for four people, much less birders, to be in a somewhat [...]

Finding a rare bird is fun.  Chasing a rare bird is fun.  Twitching a rare bird is fun.  Reporting a rare bird?  Not so fun, which is why I have been so very negligent in filling out the form to report the Yellow-headed Blackbird that I saw last summer at Jones Beach to the to [...]

That’s right, for the first time ever 10,000 Birds will field a team in a birding competition!  The annual Montezuma Muckrace, scheduled for the end of next week, will be our inaugural event.  We can’t wait!  Our squad, composed of four guys hoping not to make fools of ourselves of the finest birders in New York [...]

I haven’t had any major birding expeditions over the last week and a half but I have had several small ones.  Now that fall migration has picked up a bit I am hitting Forest Park often again, savoring every last warbler, vireo, and flycatcher that I can spot, knowing that each time I see a [...]

On the 21st of January of this year I began keeping track of all of my bird sightings on eBird, the online checklist program that was launched in 2002 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society.  Why did I decide to use eBird?  Well, since you’ve asked, there are several reasons.  [...]

After the fun-filled factory tour and roundtable discussion at Swarovski headquarters the whole bird-blogging bunch of us headed out to Beavertail State Park for some light birding.  Some of us, including me, tried our hand at digiscoping with equipment provided by Swarovski.  While it was rather easy to get images, getting good images is a [...]

After getting my golden ticket I was on cloud nine.  A free trip to Swarovski Optiks American Headquarters with a bunch of other bird bloggers, along with a all-day birding excursion to South Beach on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, is, well, a pretty exciting way to spend a couple of days.  It beats the heck [...]

I bird in Forest Park a lot. You know, in case you haven’t noticed,I figured I would point that out. I’ve seen two life birds there this spring, a Kentucky Warbler, which was a very quick twitch, and a Gray-cheeked Thrush, a bird I have probably seen before but failed to identify. The Kentucky Warbler [...]

Esquire, the self-proclaimed “magazine about the interests, the curiosity, the passions, of men,” just served up a provocative feature on The 75 Skills Every Man Should Master. Of course these essential skills includes perennial testosterone-drenched favorites like throwing a punch, cooking meat, and kicking ass. Hey, this is what we men do. But as the [...]

So after last year’s big year I didn’t really plan on doing another big year again, ever. But then, in a stroke of late night genius (or something) I decided to try to see 250 birds this year without the use of a car. And on Sunday, at the Forest Park waterhole, an obliging Blue-headed [...]

Jean M. Loscalzo is a resident of Queens and has been kind enough to not only show Corey around Forest Park a bit (and give Corey and Charlie a ride not so long ago) but she has also agreed to share this article with the 10,000 Birds readership. The article first appeared in the newsletter [...]

By now, Christine Guarino, a regular Welcome Wednesday contributor, needs no introduction. If you don’t know who she is, you can get an idea by reading her previous contribution about banding owls and her tale of chasing an elusive gull. And we 10,000 Birds bloggers think her phrase “unambiguous amphibious” is pretty freaking cool. When [...]

In all the talk of the birds we see and places we go it seems that one essential aspect of birding is often left out, to the detriment of those who might be trying to picture us birders out in the field. That aspect is what it is we carry on our walks and strolls, [...]

A bird first seen December 4, 2007 and misidentified as a Orchard Oriole, which would be weird enough in December, has been photographed and properly identified as a Scott’s Oriole, the first record of this southwestern oriole in New York State! It is still there and Union Square Park should be busier than usual over [...]

to try for 300 birds in New York State in one year but Scott Whittle, well, he must be certifiable. He is trying to break the record for birds seen in the state in one year (currently 344). Track the Brooklynite birder’s adventures for the year on his blog, Year of the Bird.

After exhausting myself and putting WAY too many miles on my car during my New York State 2007 Big Year I need to scale back for 2008. Inspired by guilt, Al Gore, Bigby, and my upcoming move to The Big Apple (sometime in February) I will be doing an Anti-Global Warming Big Year for 2008. [...]

That daring diver Tai Haku of Earth, Wind & Water presented his thrilling Top 10 Nature Moments of 2007 and invited us to do the same. While we’d each have a tough time narrowing down our top ten favorite moments in the field this year, Charlie, Corey and I have decided to offer an even [...]

Christine Guarino is a serious birder in a funny hat. When she is not writing about chickadees, identifying out-of-place sparrows, or tracking down winter finches she stays busy educating future generations of birders in her job as a high school biology teacher. If you ever have a chance to go birding with Christine, take it, [...]