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The Biggest Week in American Birding – on the shores of lake Erie, Ohio – is going really nicely. Sure, this is my first trip to North America, but still, who could find fault with 20+ wood warblers in a day? On my first day, we had found an American Woodcock (Scolopax minor) along the [...]

Queens, New York, Spring 2010 This blog post has one purpose and one purpose only; to showcase the amazing array of wood-warblers that made their way to the Forest Park waterhole during spring migration in 2010.  There are a couple of species of which I wish I had gotten better pictures (especially Cape May Warbler), [...]

Queens, New York, May 2009 May is the month of migration in North America.  Sure, some species move earlier and, of course, in the fall everything turns around and goes the other way, but May stands out as the month when birds that haven’t been seen since the previous fall come back in natty new [...]

The Great Bustard (Otis tarda) is one of the largest flying birds on the planet, topped only by the Kori Bustard (Ardeotis kori) and, possibly in some cases, by the Mute Swan (Cygnus olor). But what is even more spectacular than the sheer size of this bird, is its absolutely crazy lekking display. This last [...]

Yesterday was a public holiday in Austria and we had decided to take a drive out to Lake Constance / Bodensee to see what we could turn up – given that migration season has just started to kick in and we had had a dramatic turn of weather (fresh snows), we had high hopes for [...]

Before arriving in the town of Copan Ruinas, Honduras, on February 27, 2009, I had only ever heard Inca Doves.  Their melancholy “no hope, no hope” had reached my ears previously only in the town of Brawley at the south end of the Salton Sea in southern California.  So when I realized that the pasture [...]

Queens, NY, March 2010 For some reason, maybe because of the heroic effort I have made of late to get our new apartment completely unpacked and set up, Daisy agreed to let me out of the house for a few hours Monday morning to take what is perhaps my favorite walk in Queens, which is [...]

Now is the time to take one last look at the birds that have gotten us through the winter. Both the birds that stick around all year and those that visit from more northern climes are soon to be overshadowed by those feckless feathered fops from the south. I know I will be carefully tracking [...]

Flushing Meadows Corona Park, March 2010 Double-crested Cormorant Phalacrocorax auritus is a much-maligned and persecuted creature.  Like cormorants and shags the world over they are hated by fishermen who blame them for decimating fish populations.  Their rather unkempt appearance at a distance does not make them a favorite of those who like their birds to [...]

Nassau County, New York, March 2009 After having fully explored the trail around the West Pond at Jamaica Bay, we four bird bloggers agreed to load up Patrick’s car and head over to Jones Beach to see what kind of birds we could find there and some other locations in Nassau County.  Carrie had been [...]

Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Refuge, March 2009 It was at about 1:30 AM on Saturday morning that I startled awake and found myself sitting in an empty subway car in an unfamiliar location.  I stepped out of the train and my foggy brain was just realizing that I was at the end of the E [...]

Sometimes a species just stops you in your tracks.  So it was with a superlative, breeding-plumaged, male Scarlet Tanager today at Jamaica Bay.  Now Scarlet Tanagers are always a gorgeous bird, and if you walk by a breeding-plumaged male without looking not only are your credentials as a birder at stake but so are your [...]

I am always intrigued by the multitude of opinions out there on various birding subjects, but lately none more than digiscoping. With all of the birding shows involved in my schedule I have the opportunity to hear many of these opinions. Often enough, I hear birders discussing digiscoping as if it were an after thought, [...]

Almost every birder who has birded within in the range of Megaceryle alcyon, better known as the Belted Kingfisher, knows the drill. The first moment you are aware of a nearby kingfisher is when you hear its rattling call as it takes off away from you. If you try to get closer looks it just [...]

A little while after the whole excitement of choosing and announcing the winners of the Digiscoper of the Year competition is over, I try to take a bit of a step back and have another look through the thousands of entries in the competition, and pick a few images that were not amongst the winning [...]

The image that made me look hardest in this year’s Digiscoper of the Year 2011 competition was that of a Little Owl (Athene noctua) by Mario Cea taken at night! Digiscoping is normally hard enough during the day and action shots with good light are doubly tough, but this was the first time I had [...]

I enjoy digiscoping–using a digital camera with my spotting scope to get photos of birds. It’s changed quite a bit over the years. Originally digiscoping started as a way to simply get a documentation or souvenir photo of a bird using point and shoot pocket cameras with scopes or binoculars. The cameras were inexpensive compared [...]

The results of the Swarovski Optik Digiscoper of the Year 2011 have just been published and once again, they show just what is possible with a telescope and everything from a cheap compact camera to a semi-pro DSLR. The winner this year was Tara Tanaka of the USA, with a stunning image of a Roseate [...]

The Buff-bellied Pipit* Anthus rubescens, which is known in the Americas as the American Pipit, is a bland little bird, and one of those species that are only known and noticed by birders.  If you mention to a random person that you saw a pipit without providing any other context the most likely response would [...]

Any day of birding in New York State that includes a sighting of a Vesper Sparrow is a better-then-average day. Between the two breeding bird atlases in the state – one done in the early ’80s and one in the early ’00s – the number of atlas blocks with Vesper Sparrows declined 49%, a decline [...]