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Manhattan, April 2010 In the busiest and most developed borough of New York City, Manhattan, which is what most tourists think of when they think of New York City (if they are thinking at all), the signs of spring are sometimes subtle, but most are, like much of Manhattan, in your face.  How, for example, [...]

New York City, June 2008 The title of this post pretty much says it all. A couple of weeks ago I watched and photographed a young House Sparrow getting fed by its mother. I also watched, but failed to get pictures of, the same young bird being fed by two different male House Sparrows. These [...]

In North America there is really only one duck that could even come close to competing with the Wood Duck for the title of most fair, and the Harlequin Duck is just too much of a trollop to really compete.  Wood Ducks are essentially in a class of their own and seeing a drake in [...]

On my way to work this morning I thought I would take a quick stop at Inwood Hill Park way up on the far northern tip of Manhattan.  The park is barely out of my way to my office in New Jersey so I figured I would be remiss in my birding if I didn’t [...]

There is no need for me to go into detail about past birding experiences at Bryant Park. Regular readers of 10,000 Birds will recall a host of cooperative wood-warblers, an absurdly obliging woodcock, and many more good birds over the last several years.  But even the annals of Bryant Park bird sightings, if such annals [...]

We light the oven so that everyone might bake bread in it. -José Martí For the second time in three years there is an Ovenbird hanging around in Bryant Park well into December. I am convinced that, like José Martí, the Ovenbird seeks to nourish the masses.  But instead of feeding the Cuban masses hungry [...]

If it were entirely up to me I likely would not have given up my Saturday afternoon this past weekend to go to Daisy’s job’s yearly summer picnic.  But I agreed, mostly because of the promise of delicious food and the threats of physical harm.  The location of the picnic intrigued me as well.  I [...]

I first met Jacob Drucker within a month of my moving to New York City.  He was with a group of young naturalists pulling invasive plants out of Forest Park.  Since then I have only been able to stand back and watch in awe as he has become an amazingly good birder, with the advantage [...]

This morning dawned clear and sunny, not the weather one wants when one has committed to not birding for the day.  When local listservs and phone lines start humming about a Varied Thrush, normally found in the Pacific Northwest, being seen in Central Park and a Northern Lapwing, a bird of Eurasia, being seen in [...]

The Prothonotary Warbler first noticed by the birding world over a week ago was still hanging out at the “main branch” of the New York Public Library at 5th Ave between 40th and 42nd Streets as recently as yesterday.  The bird was NOT seen today and many think it has moved on, spurred by the [...]

One advantage of being unemployed is that you have more free time.  This is key when an email goes out to the listservs about a Prothonotary Warbler being seen next to the famous lions outside the “main branch” of the New York City Library, which is next to Bryant Park.  As quickly as I could [...]

Bryant Park in midtown Manhattan is rapidly becoming one of my favorite places to see birds.  After the Ovenbird last winter, the American Woodcock this spring, and the wood-warblers in September I was hooked but a recent visit there has me raving about Bryant Park as a birding destination all over again.  Desi and I [...]

Those who read this blog regularly might recall how this past December I was fortunate enough to have a close encounter with an overly confiding Ovenbird and at the end of April I was lucky enough to see an American Woodcock.  Both of these encounters took place in Manhattan’s Bryant Park, a couple of blocks [...]

A horde of Daisy’s relatives are visiting us during the month of May and I have taken this second week of the month off to spend time with them.  The fact that the second week of May just so happens to be the peak of spring migration is a total coincidence and has nothing to [...]

Monday morning a Prothonotary Warbler was reported in Central Park.  I, of course, had to be at work all day, but did manage to take my lunch break in the park.  In the rain.  Without seeing the bird.  So you can imagine my joy when the bird was once again reported from Central Park on [...]

As everyone knows by now the eastern United States was hammered yesterday by a classic nor’easter which created blizzard conditions for much of the eastern seaboard.  New York City, where I live and work, was no exception.  My office near Port Authority was technically closed but I (was) volunteered to man the phones for the [...]

An intrepid New York City birder has been keeping tabs on an Ovenbird that has apparently decided to make the attempt to spend the winter in Bryant Park this year.  This birder has also been kind enough to keep the rest of the New York City birding community aware of the Ovenbird through the wonder [...]

I’ve recently discovered that if I hustle out of my office for my lunch hour, jump on the uptown C train and get off at 72nd St I can spend some time birding the west side of Central Park while I work my way north to 81st St to get on the downtown C train [...]

New York City is full of surprises.  For example, did you know that John James Audubon, you know, THE John James Audubon, the nineteenth-century painter of birds and mammals, the one with the birding and conservation organization named after him, has his final resting place in New York?  Well, he does, and a recent visit [...]

Oh the birds I saw Saturday on the cold and clear December morning.  The sun was out along with the hordes of tourists that clogged the paths in the south of the park but the three American Crows and several Blue Jays standing sentinel seemed more concerned about an accipitor than the humans on paths [...]