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Few experiences birding get me more excited than adding a new bird to my Queens list. Of course, as the list grows it gets more and more difficult to add something new to it. My latest addition, a Parasitic Jaeger off the coast, finally got me to my 289th bird, well over a year since [...]

I first met Anthony Collerton when he was trying to see the Barrow’s Goldeneye at Jamaica Bay back in February. It was something like his fifth attempt at the bird. That made me wonder why someone would put so much energy into a species that is regular in New York and not a lifer. As [...]

The International Ornithologists’ Union has a newly-updated checklist and website. It makes browsing all the world’s birds easier and includes range information for every subspecies. It is awesome and I highly recommend a visit.

Nothing frustrates me more than a report of a good bird that reaches me while I am at work or on my way there. And the frustration is magnified all the more when the bird, like the one Thursday morning, is reported from Queens and is also one that I have not yet seen in [...]

As regular readers of 10,000 Birds already know, I am enamored of my Queens list. So when a Red-headed Woodpecker was reported on Thursday at St. John’s Cemetery by Daryl Cavallaro (who shared this picture with us awhile back) I was there first thing Friday morning. I searched for about an hour unsuccessfully before I [...]

Richard Fried spent 2011 doing a New York State Big Year and managed to top the record of 350 species which was only set in 2008 by Scott Whittle. Richard totaled 352 species, an impressive number, by seeing almost all of the regularly occurring New York birds and the vast majority of the rarities that [...]

Like some of the other beat writers around here I’ve been roped into keeping a year list this year, and inspired by the other lists I looked at I thought about what I wanted to achieve this year in birding. As opposed to my usual position of seeing whatever I see. It is a scary [...]

My name is Nate.  And I keep county lists. I realize that this admission tars me as the most obsessive and compulsive among a community of obsessive-compulsives.  I realize that listing is a reviled in birding culture as it is celebrated, and more listing even more so, but hear me out here.  I mean to [...]

Two-thousand-and-eleven was a pretty darn good year for me, birding-wise.  Sure, I didn’t leave the United States but my first trip to the Pacific Northwest allowed me to see lots of new birds and spending the beginning of the year in southern California didn’t hurt the ol’ year list either. And, as usual, I saw [...]

277! As of 4/22/12.   Greater White-fronted Goose Emperor Goose Snow Goose Ross’s Goose Brant Cackling Goose Canada Goose Trumpeter Swan Tundra Swan Wood Duck Gadwall Falcated Duck Eurasian Wigeon American Wigeon Mallard Blue-winged Teal Cinnamon Teal Northern Shoveler Northern Pintail Green-winged Teal Canvasback Redhead Ring-necked Duck Tufted Duck Greater Scaup Lesser Scaup King Eider [...]

I’ve never done a year list before, beyond noting how many I have in a year due to eBird, but since everyone else is doing it and I am a sucker of peer pressure… I’m not expecting to beat anyone with my list, in spite of my early lead, as I have the New Zealand [...]

This is my list of all bird species seen in Nunavut in 2012. I am not really a lister, it isn’t what drives me. Somewhere I have a life list, woefully in need of an update, with perhaps 800-900 species on it. I have no clue how many of those are in the ABA area. [...]

The three hundred and seventy-two injuries of Corey Finger I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.   This is my list of all bird species seen in 2012.  The year 2012 marks the first time ever, in more than 30 years of birding, that I keep a year list. [...]

1. Some crows 2. Southern Harrier 3. About 100 mallard ducks and three or four Canada geese sitting every day all winter in an unfrozen patch in the Highway Cloverleaf; they totally disappeared when our untimely thaw came along and now two ducks are back. 4. A great grey owl on my friend’s facebook page.

During the year I will keep track of what birds we see, but we don’t know where we might go or what we may see! I will include all birds both here in Australia and also should we go overseas I will count those as well. I will record the date and location of the [...]

I often poke fun at listers I perceive as being more interested in ticks than birds. (Listing ticks I mean, I have yet to meet a birder who is really interested in icky parasites). Not that I don’t enjoy seeing new species myself, it’s just that they are an easy target and I am nothing if not [...]

Finally!  It took long enough but I have finally seen an Eurasian Wigeon in my home borough, at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge’s East Pond to be exact.  It was nice to add bird number 284 to my Queens life list, though it seems kind of absurd that it has taken so long to see one [...]

Were one to draw up one of those lists of “top ten x to see before you die”, a formula that is perhaps a morbid way to phrase quite a jolly question, and you were to examine which ten birds you had to see in life, I would imagine the question would divide people endlessly. [...]

While in Ohio for the Midwest Birding Symposium Christopher, Susan, and I made our way to Metzger Marsh one day to see if there were any good birds out by the lake.  We didn’t find any at first but did run into Greg Miller, who just happens to be a rather famous birder of late [...]

I’ve been birding for nearly 2/3 of my life and, until this past weekend, I’d never even sniffed a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher.  For a long time my inability to find one of the most common members of the devious genus Empidonax was a sore spot with me.  After all, I was a reasonably experienced birder.  I [...]