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A bird’s crop is an expandable “muscular pouch near the gullet or throat.”  It is used to store excess food for later digestion.  Essentially an extension of the esophagus, the crop can expand a rather remarkable amount, to the point where it can make a small-headed, long-necked bird look like a big-headed, short-necked bird (because [...]

I finally got back out with my Swarovski digiscoping rig again yesterday now that I have a replacement lens for my camera.  My destination in the morning hours before work?  Forest Park, of course, where I have taken the responsibility of restocking the feeding stations on Thursdays and Fridays.  So when I left my house [...]

As always, the “Just for Fun Avian ID Quiz” is brought to you by Jory Langner, our esteemed Avian Quizmaster.
It’s Saturday.  That means it’s time for the answer to Wednesday’s “Just For Fun Avian ID Quiz #9″.
Congratulations to all who attempted and answered this quiz.  It seems that everyone had the correct species in mind.  [...]

As always, the “Just for Fun Avian ID Quiz” is brought to you by Jory Langner, our esteemed Avian Quizmaster.  Jory had a heck of a Thanksgiving and we think the turkey is still having some effect on him…
Rules are the usual, regularly occurring birds in the ABA area (Code 1-3), the question to be [...]

As always, the “Just for Fun Avian ID Quiz” is brought to you by Jory Langner, our esteemed Avian Quizmaster.
Wednesday we started this week’s quiz by publishing a single clue. We said it was possible to guess the identity of the answer with that single clue.  Congratulations to Jason who had the correct answer (and thanks to [...]

As always, the “Just for Fun Avian ID Quiz” is brought to you by Jory Langner, our esteemed Avian Quizmaster.  This week’s quiz is short and sweet though more clues will be added if it turns out no one can figure it out…we 10,000 Birds bloggers are confident that our readership can “get it in [...]

As always, the “Just for Fun Avian ID Quiz” is brought to you by Jory Langner, our esteemed Avian Quizmaster. Jory has come up with an entertaining quiz that lets those who spend waaaay too much time looking at field guides a chance to shine.
The rules are completely different this time.  There is no need [...]

As always, the “Just for Fun Avian ID Quiz” is brought to you by Jory Langner, our esteemed Avian Quizmaster, who assures we 10,000 Birds bloggers that he was not out in the sun too much and did not experiment with peyote prior to making this week’s quiz…and I guess we have no choice but [...]

As always, the “Just for Fun Avian ID Quiz” is brought to you by Jory Langner, our esteemed Avian Quizmaster.  A word of warning before you scroll down and try this quiz: Jory is just back from the southwestern United States and it seems like he caught some excess sun (that, or maybe he was [...]

When the sun is shining and it is in the fifties on the Fahrenheit scale on a Sunday  in November I’ll be birding.  Of course.  Jamaica Bay was where I wanted to be, mostly because I wanted to get some shots of the waterfowl flying from the West Pond to the bay with the sun [...]

It’s Saturday.  That means it’s time for the answer to last Wednesday’s “A Doozy of a Just For Fun Avian ID Quiz“.
This last quiz was a bit different from previous quizzes.  I hope you enjoyed it.
First of all, thanks and congratulations to the following folks who either answered correctly or agreed with those that did: Rob, Mike [...]

Once again Jory has agreed to provide 10,000 Birds readers with an identification quiz.  This one is different from his typical quiz: as a specific bird is not being identified and word play is involved instead of field marks and bird behavior.  Good luck (you’re going to need it!) and remember to post your guesses [...]

If you see shorebirds on a coastal beach in North America they are most likely Sanderlings (Calidris alba).  If they are running back and forth as the waves ebb and flow they are almost assuredly Sanderlings.  They are the “clockwork toy” birds according to Sibley, “The Bird That Plays Tag with the Waves” according to [...]

Yesterday I took a long walk across several parks in Queens looking for birds.  And while many species crossed my path, none were as endearing nor as energetic as the numerous Ruby-crowned Kinglets (Regulus calendula) that seemed to be everywhere.  Not only were they everywhere but they were fearless as well!  Several times one would [...]

This past weekend Daisy and I were pleased to host my brother, Jonathan, his fiancee, Shannon, and their adorable three-year-old daughter, Natasha.  Though keeping up with a three-year-old is pretty darn exhausting it was great having her around, especially as everything in the city is interesting to a three-year-old from upstate New York.  Whether it [...]

At Fort Tilden on Sunday the most cooperative Black-throated Green Warbler (Dendroica virens) entertained us birders who were there in search of rarities for at least ten minutes.  We could have stayed longer, and would have, under almost any other circumstances, but we had rarities to chase and really, considering the looks and pictures we [...]

Saturday was sunny and cool, the perfect combination for autumn birding.  I spent all morning at Jamaica Bay and had a great time (more on that tomorrow).  Especially great was seeing twelve species of wood-warbler, one of my best days of wood-warbler watching all fall.  Other than the hordes of Yellow-rumped Warblers that have returned [...]

When I got home from birding Jamaica Bay this morning I was greeted by an odd email off the ebirdsNYC listserv.  A rail, unidentified to species, but with a link to pictures taken by the finder, had been found in a vacant lot on the east side of Manhattan.  It was a Virginia Rail!  In [...]

It is not every day that a Great Blue Heron tolerates one’s presence from just across a small pond.  But then, it is not every Monday afternoon that one finds oneself in a position to test the tolerance of Ardea herodias, no matter how unintentionally.  But, on my vacation day from work and an off [...]

Sometimes an easy bird can become difficult to identify.  Such was the case with the molting bird below, a species that has crossed my path hundreds of times.  It is an icterid, a family that includes blackbirds, grackles, orioles, cowbirds and meadowlarks, but beyond that I was temporarily stumped.  My birding partner for the day, [...]