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On a visit yesterday after work to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn I happened across this female Red-breasted Merganser that I initially thought was in the midst of struggling to swallow a nasty chunk of some kind of marine life. It quickly became apparent, however, that the bird was having a hard time getting her [...]

Any species of shrike is an outstanding bird in New York City. A Northern Shrike in Brooklyn is no exception.  You can imagine my enjoyment then, when as we driving out of Floyd Bennett Field, Shawn Billerman, who was sitting in the passenger seat, suddenly exclaimed, “Shrike!” As my Ford Focus came to a screeching [...]

A friend of a friend named Daryl Cavallaro took this stunning shot of a Merlin snagging a snack recently at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn.  Bonus points to anyone who can identify the dragonfly.  The photo is copyrighted to Daryl and, no, you can’t use it without permission. Merlin with dragonfly by Daryl Cavallaro (click [...]

Long have I heard the members of the New York City Butterfly Club extol the virtues of Floyd Bennett Field in terms of the amazing array of Lepidoptera one can track down there if one is so inclined.  On a recent visit with some birders I took time out from prowling the rows of the [...]

I spent Saturday morning and into the early afternoon with my becoming-a-birder friend, Kerry, with whom I’ve birded before, birding in Queens and a bit into Brooklyn.  We didn’t see anything too spectacular until we were about to leave Fort Tilden, though Kerry was very interested in the variety of ducks we found at Jamaica [...]

The Queens County Bird Club field trip this past Sunday to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn was relatively well-attended, with eleven people present, and loaded with some of the more common species that one would expect in November.  Great Blue Heron, Green-winged Teal, Cedar Waxwing, Dark-eyed Junco, Common Loon, American Kestrel, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Belted Kingfisher, [...]

When I posted my pelagic preview last week I was hoping that I would manage to see my four-hundredth bird at sea on Sunday. I didn’t anticipate birding that would result in a lifer prior to the pelagic, as Daisy had put her foot down about my doing any birding this past weekend other than [...]

As Mike nicely detailed in his post the two of us spent most of Sunday morning on the East Pond of Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge looking at and learning about shorebirds at the Jamaica Bay Shorebird Festival. He also mentioned that we didn’t see a Baird’s Sandpiper, a bird that neither of us has ever [...]