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At some point, while I was in graduate school, it became apparent that I was going to study the problem of finding one’s way around. Navigation, orientation, mental maps, sense of direction, knowledge of the landscape, and related ideas must be linked to how people who live off the land survive, and I was studying [...]

Being a birder and living in Queens as I do I can’t help but be drawn to the waterhole at Forest Park during spring migration. The waterhole, an unassuming little vernal pool, is often the only water in the eastern half of Forest Park which means that any bird that wants a bath or a [...]

Queens, New York, Spring 2010 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), [...]

Queens, New York, May 2009 May is the month of migration in North America.  Sure, some species move earlier and, of course, in the fall everything turns around and goes the other way, but May stands out as the month when birds that haven’t been seen since the previous fall come back in natty new [...]

April, while not as exciting a migratory month as May is in the northeastern United States, is still a great time of year to see migrating birds. Wood-warblers, those brightly-colored attention-whores of spring, have most birders swooning, but their numbers don’t really pick up until May. Sparrows, on the other hand, seem to make the [...]

I sort of feel it’s sort of my duty, as the 10,000 Birds beat writer covering the southern tier of the continent, to be the bellwether of goodies to come, the sherpa of spring, if you will (please don’t).  You see, “spring” in the sense that birders in the far northern reaches experience it, has [...]

Though this question is probably only relevant to birders in the midwest and northeast of the United States I feel compelled, like last year, to ask it. Have you seen your first Eastern Phoebe of 2012? When? Was it earlier or later than usual for you? my first decently photographed Eastern Phoebe of 2012 at [...]

The more data about bird migration we gather from professional and citizen science efforts, the more each one of us can learn about the comings and goings of our favorite species. Obviously, when Audubon and Cornell Lab of Ornithology collaborate on a Bird Migration Forecast tool, the result is going to be pretty spectacular.   But information wants to [...]

As the Sun creeps closer to the horizon bringing with it more and more twilight my mind turns more to spring and the return of our migrants, still some four months away. It seems strange that I’ll miss the return of the Sun this year, as I leave this week for a trade show and [...]

Back in August we linked to an article about cuckoos that had GPS transmitters attached to them in England and how they had taken widely divergent paths to get to Africa.  Funny story about that – though they did take widely divergent paths they have come back together: Three of the birds, Chris, Martin and [...]

More than 4,000 migrating Eared Grebes came to ground in Utah with calamitous consequences, apparently mistaking large parking lots for bodies of water. Thousands of these unwise waterfowl perished, but thousands more have survived and are being tended to by government workers and volunteers.  Oh, the humanity! (hat tip to Patrick O’Driscoll)

Last week I was doing a birding tour of the east and west slopes of Ecuador and encountered some warblers that have already made it to Ecuador.  It is really amazing how far and how fast they can fly to improve the living conditions that assure their millenarian survival.  Here are a couple of pictures [...]

Every spring the wood-warblers come north bedecked in breeding finery and every autumn they head back south again in more muted colors. The trickle of migrants becomes a flood and then slows to a trickle again, leaving us New Yorkers with a host of Butterbutts and few other wood-warblers to tide us over until spring. [...]

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking successive autumns. – George Eliot Indeed….very much so. I think most birders can understand this sentiment, whether you care for the weather or not. As birders know, weather, going back to school, football, [...]

Mention that you’re interested in watching birds in Western New York, and someone will invariably ask you if you’ve been to Braddock Bay. The question makes sense, as Braddock Bay is synonymous with high quality ornithological research in New York west of Sapsucker Woods. Most locals have visited the Braddock Bay Raptor Research hawkwatch platform, [...]

Irene sends her love. As might be expected she was feeling a little weaker after crossing the Atlantic and wasn’t quite the ‘big lady’ that she was on your side of the pond. Let’s just say she’d mellowed a little on the journey over. She brought gifts of course and for those we’re mostly grateful. [...]

The verdant Appalachian Mountains, North America’s concerned forehead, stretch from the northern parts of Georgia all the way to the fir covered forests of New England.  Unbeknownst to most of the millions of Americans that live within a few hours drive of their misty peaks and secluded hollows, the ancient, topographically diverse Appalachians are one [...]

Labor Day weekend has passed, the kids are back in school, and it is now (un)officially autumn in the United States no matter how high the mercury rises.  Of course actual autumn does not begin until after the autumnal equinox which is on 23 September this year.  But try telling that to the birds, some [...]

Intentionally or not, the innovate scientists at William & Mary’s Center for Conservation Biology have been mapping out the impressive limits of Whimbrel ability. Long-time readers no doubt remember the adventures of Winnie the Whimbrel, who set a new distance record in the flight range of Whimbrels before she, in the tradition of other great aviatrixes, disappeared into [...]

The sky has been haunting me for days now. It is the featureless nature of the sea of blue, spanning from horizon to horizon, its neglect of offering a foothold to the wandering eye that binds my thoughts. They have gone. The dots in the sky, forming whirling, twirling and spiralling clouds, breaking into a dashing descent, tossing [...]