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Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” is a marvel of modernist poetry. It is only 246 words long, divided into thirteen sections, each labeled with the corresponding Roman numeral, and a surface reading will show that it is about, not surprisingly, thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird. Reading deeper, though, […]

The Yellow-headed Blackbird I spotted back in the beginning of July is still hanging around the West End of Jones Beach. It is regularly sighted and reported on the listservs and I was pleased to see it in the median near West End 2 today in the middle of a day of birding. […]

When I arrived at Jones Beach on Thursday morning I planned to check out the area around the Coast Guard station for early migrating shorebirds and to photograph some terns. Was I ever surprised to see what I presumed to be a female Yellow-headed Blackbird!
I first saw the bird foraging in the grass just […]

In the same walk that netted me these deer photos I also apparently wandered into the breeding territory of a male Red-winged Blackbird. Unfortunately for the bird and its offspring it had chosen rather marginal turf to try to breed in, in little tiny patches of cattails along a path. Needless to say, […]

After work on Tuesday Daisy and I headed over to Papscanee Island for a snerklefork (our much better term for “picnic”) in the remaining hours of daylight (how great is this whole early daylight savings time thing?). The thick snow that blanketed the ground on my last visit was greatly reduced, which made the […]

One of the abundant benefits to keeping a nature journal, whether a blog or a book, is the opportunity to analyze species counts at your favorite birding spots over time. For example, I’ve been in the practice of visiting Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx every January. The main draw is Rusty Blackbird, […]