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Ah, nemesis birds. We crave you. We hunt for you. We make up elaborate theories as to why we haven’t seen you. And then, sometimes, we do see you. Take the Golden Eagle. This massive, magnificent raptor is not uncommon ’round these parts, and it is known to frequent roadsides and utility poles. I should [...]

This is the last part of my Wallcreeper trilogy in which I will tell the tale of another day, the day I set out to see the species’ colours. Part 1, in which I reveal to you the course of my 20-year search, is here, and part 2 about me finally finding my life Wallcreeper [...]

This is part 2 of the Wallcreeper trilogy, the part which will feature the story of my success. You might want to read part 1 here before you follow my narrative from wherever you are to the Alps of Austria. We (which means my wife, my son who was two years old then, and myself) had [...]

To each lifer, there is a story. Sometimes, the story can be very short, a mere line in the notebook without a memory attached.  Sometimes, the story consists of nothing more than a mental image of having been there and seen that. And then, there are the lifers whose story is a journey through the birding adventures of [...]

What better way to spend Christmas Eve than driving so far north in New York State that you are actually north of the Adirondacks (to look for birds, of course)? Nothing! So when Daisy dragged me out of my warm bed before sunrise this morning, insisting we head way up to the town of Malone [...]

Since I decided in June to make this year as big a birding year as possible in New York State I have been putting far too much effort into finding species that, seemingly, do not want to be found. Especially the two woodpeckers, American Three-toed and Black-backed, that in New York State occur only in [...]