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There are many tales of a Tufted Titmouse taking hair from humans to use as nest-lining material.  Watching a titmouse take hairs from a human is something I have always longed to see but I never considered how cool it might be to see a titmouse take hair from another creature.  Fortunately, a pair of [...]

It feels like it has been forever since I did a simple post like this where all I did was go to my favorite local patch, Forest Park, take a few pictures of some of the common feeder birds, and share those pictures with the 10,000 Birds audience.  Sometimes in the search for the new [...]

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), there are a couple species [...]

When we left our three crazies, Heydi, Doug, and I, we had just finished our morning on the coast and were heading to Forest Park to start working on adding forest species like wood-warblers, vireos, and thrushes to the day list.  Doug had foolishly wisely turned driving duties over to me because of my familiarity [...]

Forest Park’s waterhole is known as a great place to see lots of wood-warblers without having to walk for miles or suffer from “warbler neck” because you are looking up into the canopy too much.  At the waterhole the birds come to you; you just have to patiently wait for them and eventually they come [...]

Just plain feeder birds are too easy for 10,000 Birds readers to identify, even in diabolical format, so this diabolical identification quiz features flying feeder birds!  The three pictures below all depict feeder birds doing that activity for which birds are known and envied, flying!  Can you name what bird is in each of the [...]

Dear Forest Park: You have been my favorite birding destination since I moved to Queens two years ago.  The short three blocks that I faithfully walk to arrive at your doorstep have a groove worn in them from my feet.  I have enjoyed the thrill of spring migration, the birdless doldrums of summer, the foliage [...]

We Queens birders who live near Forest Park are still filling feeders and scattering seed for the hungry avian hordes, and with the amount of snow still on the ground the feeders are as busy as ever.  Whether you like watching woodpeckers coming for suet, doves for millet, finches for thistle, or chickadees for sunflower [...]

New Year’s Day birding is always so much fun.  Every bird is a new bird on the year list and the year seems wide open, full of limitless possibilities.  New Year’s Day 2010 was no exception.  My biggest problem was that I couldn’t decide where I would go with the few hours for birding that [...]

The nor’easter that blanketed the east coast of the United States did not leave New York City unscathed, and the birds are flocking to the Forest Park feeding stations after the first serious snowfall of the season.  With about a foot of snow down in Queens, many of the natural food supplies that birds were [...]

Once again this winter the Forest Park irregulars, a devoted group of birders who spend far too much time in Forest Park, are maintaining two feeding stations.  Seeing as it is a sunny day and Daisy agreed to let me go outside for a bit, I headed over to the waterhole, which serves as one [...]

All weekend I could not wait for Monday to arrive.  Yes, you read that right, I was looking forward to Monday all weekend long.  Have I finally gone off the deep end?  No, of course not!  The weather was lousy all weekend and Monday, a day I had taken off from work, was forecast to [...]

This week I managed to squeeze one full morning of birding in at my favorite birding site, Forest Park.  Tuesday morning was sunny but a bit cool, the lower temperatures a reminder that while it is technically still summer we certainly won’t be getting any more beach days this year.  Working the late shift at [...]

I thought that this quiz might be a bit easier than previous diabolical identification quizzes and I think I was right.  Not that I am trying to downplay the sheer brilliance of Jason, who managed to build off of Jochen‘s two-and-a-half correct answers and get all four right (amazing, simply amazing)!  Maybe my diabolicity is [...]

Ah, the first day of September.  The air was crisp, clean and cool after overnight northerly winds, and the trees in Forest Park were alive with migrant wood-warblers that had been a couple of hundred miles north a mere twelve hours earlier.  As I strolled through the park the high-pitched twitterings of a big flock [...]

So this past Sunday was really a banner day for me birding and photographing birds in Queens.  In addition to the Scarlet Tanager and Wilson’s Snipe I also managed to get to the waterhole to see a Philadelphia Vireo found by Seth Ausubel, a stellar Queens birder, before I arrived.  The bird had made two [...]

This winter I have taken on the responsibility of keeping the two feeding stations at Forest Park supplied two days a week, on Thursdays and Fridays.  I’ve made sure to get there both days during periods of inclement or extremely cold weather but if the weather is warm and nothing is falling from the sky [...]

I finally got back out with my Swarovski digiscoping rig again yesterday now that I have a replacement lens for my camera.  My destination in the morning hours before work?  Forest Park, of course, where I have taken the responsibility of restocking the feeding stations on Thursdays and Fridays.  So when I left my house [...]

Though 2008 was a great year for 10,000 Birds things in 2009 are looking even better.  Because, in addition to all of our normal birding and blogging something happened at the end of 2008 that was simply so cool, so amazing, and so exciting that it has taken until now for 10,000 Birds to pick [...]

When I woke up bright and early on Saturday morning the air was clear and cold and moving fast (by which I mean it was windy).  It had been weeks since I made a proper tour of Forest Park so I was out and about and looking for birds as quickly as I could get [...]