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It has been over two months since the Greater White-fronted Goose was found at Van Cortlandt Park in New York City’s northernmost borough, the Bronx. Andrew Baksh, Birding Dude, has been keeping close tabs on it during his weekly Van Cortlandt Park bird walks since, and I figured it was time that I made a [...]

Butterflies are often beautiful.  Flowers are often beautiful.  When both are together, as often happens, the level of beauty increases exponentially through some form of natural world legerdemain.  It is impossible to figure out exactly how it happens because it seems like natural beauty would have additive or at most multiplicative powers when combined with [...]

Spring migration is just heating up around here so I’ve been stealing odd hours in the nearest stretch of decent habitat. Riverdale Park is a thin ribbon of greenspace along the steep northwestern border of New York City. I’ve never found this park to host a truly impressive array of birds; the sightlines are poor [...]

When discussing my birding plans for Sunday with some New Yorkers I was met with blank stares, queries about my sanity, and outright derision. Apparently, New Yorkers, at least non-birding New Yorkers, do not wake up very early on Sunday morning in Queens in order to take the F train all the way into Manhattan [...]

After birding all day on Friday with Mike and Charlie I dropped Charlie off at his hotel and Mike off at his house and then what did I do? Well, I went birding, of course! It really wasn’t my plan to continue birding but Daisy was working late and I didn’t have keys with me [...]

After exploring Van Cortlandt Park we three intrepid birding bloggers headed through the snow and traffic to Pelham Bay Park, which, at 2,700 acres, is the largest of New York City’s many parks. Our goal was to see as many species of owls as we possibly could and we felt good about our prospects as [...]

After successfully finding an apartment on Saturday afternoon Daisy realized that suddenly Sunday was open for studying which meant that for me Sunday was open for birding. Sweet! A quick call to Mike confirmed that he could bird Van Cortlandt Park, which is conveniently located along the Major Deegan Expressway, the route I take through [...]

I-95 is an iconic East Coast highway that runs from the Canadian border to sunny Miami, FL, in the process passing through more states than any other Interstate in the U.S. And yet, though these 1,927 miles of prime highway carry travelers through subtropical habitat and even the Carolinas themselves, few realize that their best [...]

When I saw the post on the New York State listserv that a Cattle Egret, and sometimes two Cattle Egrets, had been seen in Drake Park in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx I knew I had to make a stop there on my way back upstate. Not only so I could see 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, a species [...]

Today was the Bronx/Westchester Christmas Bird Count. Although I participate in the West Bronx CBC every year, the confluence of family, professional, and social obligations precludes me from making the kind of commitment I’d like. Unable to meet up with other counters or attend the count compilation festivities, I’m an outsider whose observations of common [...]

The Core Team stayed close to home base these past few days, but there’s no way I could let the weekend wave of migrants wash over without dipping my toe in a little. Central Park has been flooded by both songbirds and bird watchers, with new species of the former being tallied by the latter [...]

Alluring rumors of Pine Siskin enticed me to visit Van Cortlandt Park this weekend, but alas, just like every other time I’ve chased rarities there, I came up empty. New York City’s third largest park simply covers too much acreage, 1146 to be precise, with too few landmarks by which to chart sightings and too [...]

My hometown has a bit of a reputation as a wild place, but not in the “supportive of exotic wildlife” sense, if you know what I mean. Yet an abundance of avifauna thrive here, including one species of the family Psittacidae. For those of you unfamiliar with ornithological taxonomy, that is a parrot! Yes, parrots [...]

Who doesn’t love a long weekend? Amidst the pleasures of entertaining friends and family and my fruitless attempts to catch up on some sleep, I managed to carve out an hour or so for birding. Astonishing reports of Horned Lark and Lapland Longspur drew me to Van Cortlandt Park, a Bronx public space not known for [...]

Starting this blog must have pleased the birding gods. Tonight, the Core Team got a great look at a bird we’ve wanted to see for a long time — the Eastern Screech-Owl. We were out for a walk through a stretch of woods along the Hudson River called Riverdale Park. As our bird watching has [...]