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One of the great compulsions shared by nearly all varieties of nerd is the desire to share the objects of our obsession with people. Unfortunately, for birders as for most others on the geek/dork spectrum, sharing the hobby we love with people can go horribly awry.To be honest, often this is because we go off [...]

It is not every day that one gets to explore Central Park with a friend, birder, and first-time visitor to the Big Apple.  It is even more odd to be birding Central Park in June, when migration has essentially wrapped up and all that is left are breeders and stragglers.  But that is what I [...]

I first met Jacob Drucker within a month of my moving to New York City.  He was with a group of young naturalists pulling invasive plants out of Forest Park.  Since then I have only been able to stand back and watch in awe as he has become an amazingly good birder, with the advantage [...]

On a recent visit to Central Park I chanced upon a singing House Wren Troglodytes aedon and followed it back to a hole in a dead stub of a tree.  It was actively removing tiny wood chips that had probably been there since the hole was excavated.  If I had to guess I would say [...]

In North America there is really only one duck that could even come close to competing with the Wood Duck for the title of most fair, and the Harlequin Duck is just too much of a trollop to really compete.  Wood Ducks are essentially in a class of their own and seeing a drake in [...]

I live in New York, and I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, down near Central Park South.  I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go.  I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy [...]

This morning dawned clear and sunny, not the weather one wants when one has committed to not birding for the day.  When local listservs and phone lines start humming about a Varied Thrush, normally found in the Pacific Northwest, being seen in Central Park and a Northern Lapwing, a bird of Eurasia, being seen in [...]

My friend Kerry is a budding birder.  We have had some low intensity birding outings, she owns binoculars and a field guide, and she sees and tries to identify birds that she sees in her everyday life.  When she recently asked me if I would be up for a birding outing together so that she [...]

A horde of Daisy’s relatives are visiting us during the month of May and I have taken this second week of the month off to spend time with them.  The fact that the second week of May just so happens to be the peak of spring migration is a total coincidence and has nothing to [...]

Monday morning a Prothonotary Warbler was reported in Central Park.  I, of course, had to be at work all day, but did manage to take my lunch break in the park.  In the rain.  Without seeing the bird.  So you can imagine my joy when the bird was once again reported from Central Park on [...]

Well, apparently “Too Easy Tanner Spring Quiz” was a total misnomer, as only two of the three images had the birds in them correctly identified despite some rather valiant guesswork by brave birders who were not afraid to look slightly foolish. Let’s go through the images one at a time and see how everyone did.  [...]

When things are slow bird-wise in Central Park, especially on a warm, sunny day, one good spot to check for birds is Tanner Spring, on the west side of the park near the 81st St entrance.  There is always some water there for birds to drink, bathe in, and just plain enjoy.  Of course, photographers [...]

In the busiest and most developed borough of New York City, Manhattan, which is what most tourists think of when they think of New York City (if they are thinking at all), the signs of spring are sometimes subtle, but most are, like much of Manhattan, in your face.  How, for example, can one miss [...]

I have spent many of my lunch hours over the last several months in Central Park.  As spring has sprung and the sun has come out and the weather warmed I have been in the park almost every day, scarfing up spring migrants like a starving man who finds himself at an all-you-can-eat buffet.  Now, [...]

Yet another lunch break outing to Central Park recently led to a nursery of Common Raccoons Procyon lotor searching for food both natural and human-supplied in the vicinity of Turtle Pond.  The four youngsters, seemingly without the benefit of adult supervision, were trying their best to get into trouble but were a little too scared [...]

I’ve recently discovered that if I hustle out of my office for my lunch hour, jump on the uptown C train and get off at 72nd St I can spend some time birding the west side of Central Park while I work my way north to 81st St to get on the downtown C train [...]

On a recent walk through Central Park with Daisy we were distracted, charmed, and entertained by a Golden-crowned Kinglet Regulus satrapa that was exploring each and every part of a fence for bugs, and occasionally hitting the jackpot when it found an old spider web with long-dead insects in it.  Though both North American species [...]

Oh the birds I saw Saturday on the cold and clear December morning.  The sun was out along with the hordes of tourists that clogged the paths in the south of the park but the three American Crows and several Blue Jays standing sentinel seemed more concerned about an accipitor than the humans on paths [...]

This past Monday, Will and his wife Danika were going to drive down from Albany and pick me up at 7 AM for a birding expedition to Long Island’s barrier beaches, hoping to find a variety of migrants.  Their car’s tire had other ideas, however, so I was awake at 6:15 in the morning, jonesin’ [...]

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 [...]