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When one is grocery shopping with the family on a Saturday afternoon and the phone rings, and it is a birder, odds are a rarity has been discovered. This happened to me yesterday and, well, the rarity was not only an impressive bird but it was in Queens, at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. As Daisy [...]

After a great half-day of birding on Saturday out in Suffolk County in eastern Long Island I decided to stay closer to home and try to track down some birds recently reported from Jamaica Bay’s East Pond.  The shorebird mecca has been difficult to access this year because the water level is so high (the [...]

The American White Pelican Pelecanus erythrorhynchos that was first reported from Jamaica Bay on Wednesday, 14 July, (and that I twitched on 15 July) was still present in the same spot as of yesterday.  Those who have gone looking for it in the afternoon during or after the high tide have not seen it while [...]

There is nothing more cruel to a birder than being at work when the report of a rarity flashes across the listservs.  Such was my fate on Wednesday when back-to-back reports from Jamaica Bay were posted and I could do nothing but toil for my paycheck.  To be stuck breathing artificial air under artificial light [...]

On the rare occasion that I have a car in my possession I want to take advantage of my new-found mobility every single moment.  For twenty-four hours this weekend, from Friday night to Saturday night, we had a rental car in order to go to Jones Beach Saturday afternoon, and no one minded me getting [...]

On one of my recent visits to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge I was fortunate enough to come across a cooperative Black-crowned Night-Heron Nycticorax nycticorax very close to the blind at Big John’s Pond.  It was not the first cooperative bird I have seen there and I am sure that it won’t be the last.  Enjoy [...]

It’s sad but true; some people just don’t deserve to be able to visit as marvelous a birding Mecca as Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.  Why?  Because simple rules, like staying on the paths, is too much for some people, people who feel entitled to walk wherever they feel like no matter what harm they may [...]

Normally when Wilson’s Phalaropes Phalaropus tricolor stop by at Jamaica Bay they are on their fall migration and have already lost their breeding finery and are an unremarkable gray and white bird.  Don’t get me wrong; seeing a phalarope is usually one of the highlights of a shorebird search but I always thought that someday [...]

This past Saturday morning was spent birding at Jamaica Bay with Carrie Laben, and a fine time we had, though, perhaps, my expectations for good birds are a bit high of late.  May 22 is a late day to expect passerines to still be migrating and the gardens were relatively dead, despite our efforts and [...]

We had agreed that our Queens Big Day, after lasting all day and encompassing many great birds, would finish where it started, within the friendly and familiar confines of Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.  We three intrepid big day birders, me, Doug Gochfeld and Heydi Lopes, joined again by Shane Blodgett, would try to fill in [...]

When one does a birding big day a host of difficulties can arise that destroy one’s chances at getting a great number of species.  Traffic, weather, a lack of migrant movement, and just plain bad luck can all conspire to limit the number of species one spots.  But some days the opposite happens.  A decent [...]

A recent visit to Jamaica Bay didn’t offer up the hoped-for and previously-reported White-faced Ibis, a bird that I have still not seen in New York State, but there was a host of other birds to enjoy, to say nothing of the simple pleasure of sunlight in a gorgeous environment.  What follows are some of [...]

Sunday morning, early, I left my house and made way via bus and train to Jamaica Bay, the premiere birding destination in Queens, where Mike, in from the wilds of Rochester in upstate New York, and I had agreed to meet.  The sun was shining strongly, and by the time I arrived at Jamaica Bay [...]

The birding world has celebrities, celebrities that we at 10,000 Birds like to call birderati, and sometimes one is lucky enough to meet them.  On Monday morning I received an email letting me know that one such member of the birderati, Tim Appleton, co-founder of the British Birdwatching Fair and manager of Rutland Water Nature [...]

You poor suffering souls who come back repeatedly to read the dreck that I write about my assorted birding adventures will recall that last summer, when we were both still expectant fathers rather than actual fathers, I suspected Patrick Belardo from The Hawk Owl’s Nest and all other birders from New Jersey were cursed when [...]

Having a borrowed car for a week is much less fun when a blizzard hits and one has to dig said car out of about a foot a snow plus what the plows pile on top.  Daisy knew I was a bit bummed about having a car for a week and only managing to take [...]

A recent trip to Jamaica Bay in the wind and cold was not very birdy and what birds I did see were mostly frantically feeding on whatever they could find.  A large flock of European Starlings Sturnus vulgaris was no exception and I watched and digiscoped quite a few starlings feeding on Winged Sumac Rhus [...]

Saturday was one of those all-day birding days that I think are going to pretty rare occurrences before too long.  Will of The Nightjar, with whom I haven’t birded in, well, way too long, finally made the much anticipated trip down to Queens for some Jamaica Bay shorebirding, and we had a grand old time [...]

WARNING!  GRAPHIC BLOODY WOUND PHOTO IN THIS POST!  IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE IT CLICK HERE FOR SOME CUTESY-TYPE STUFF! As I was walking through the very dark Forest Park yesterday morning at half past five so I could get to the Q53 Limited bus to take me to Jamaica Bay by the time [...]

Some of you who regularly read this blog will recall my recent outing with Patrick after which I surmised that New Jersey birders coming to bird in New York were cursed.  You may also recall that in that same post I mentioned that we would have a chance to break the dreaded Jersey Curse in [...]