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Saturday I was down in New York City once again and because Daisy has law school finals to study for I had plenty of free time so I went shopping at the mall. Ha! Of course I didn’t go shopping: I went birding. Because I had promised Daisy a ride to her [...]

After a late night playing poker with my father and his friends (and getting my butt kicked, I might add) I headed down to Daisy’s house and we got to sleep at some time after two AM. So when my cell phone rang at ten to seven on Saturday morning, you can understand why I [...]

Do any birders out on the internets have $800,000 to spare? Because what is possibly the best home for a birder to live in in New York State is on the market right now! I can pretty much guarantee that if you buy this house you will not have to leave your back [...]

Today I had the full day free to bird the environs of New York City, so, of course, the winds stayed out of the south and no new migrants came in for my birding enjoyment. But Mike, my bird-blogging cohort, was free to do some birding, and, even better (no offense Mike), the American [...]

It took me long enough. This weekend in New York Daisy and I spent two hours at the southern end of Staten Island in Conference House Park and Mount Loretto trying and failing to find a reported Western Kingbird. And Sunday morning I met Mike at Manhattan’s Central Park and searched for and failed to [...]

Much ado has been made about the confusing nature of wood-warblers on their way south in the fall. They no longer have the distinctive colors and markings of breeding plumage and juveniles with their even more obscure plumages are thrown into the mix. Usually, however, with a decent enough look at a wood-warbler [...]

I am so sick of the East Pond of Jamaica Bay. Now don’t get me wrong, Jamaica Bay is a world-class birding destination that rarely disappoints, but how many times in one year can a birder walk out on those stinking mud flats and look at shorebirds? Fortunately, after Sunday’s trip there I don’t have [...]

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 [...]

This Sunday I once again made moves to marvel at the multitude of shorebirds that make Jamaica Bay a must-visit for any birder looking to garner a respectable number on a New York Big Year. Though my goal of 300 birds is modest I am starting to think that mudflats are my home away from [...]

When a Curlew Sandpiper, a European species of shorebird I have never seen, was reported from Jamaica Bay last weekend I really wanted to go see it. I decided not to drop everything and go as I was planning on being in New York this weekend anyway, so I asked every birder I knew who [...]

My first sign something was wrong while I scanned the East Pond of Jamaica Bay during my long day’s birding last Thursday was a sharp pain in my belly. I knew it wasn’t my appendix, as I had mine out several years ago and the pain was in the wrong spot anyway. Then [...]

The weekend began for me with a Friday night for the ages, if I could only remember it. Daisy, her two sisters, her brother-in-law and I went to a karaoke bar and I made the mistake of trying to keep up in terms of drinking soju, a Korean liquor. I learned [...]

I should have been home, either tending to my delightful new daughter or at least getting some sleep. Instead, I found myself driving to Queens in search of a duck that shouldn’t have been there. Actually, it was three ducks, an enticing trio of Fulvous Whistling-Ducks that had been hanging around Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge [...]

The World Series of Birding was held in Cape May, NJ this weekend just a few hours from NYC while, at the same time, Empire State avian enthusiasts conducted their own fund-raising Birdathons. Though I was unable to participate in any formal birding activities (and way too bush-league to compete in the WSB) I enjoyed [...]