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Spotted Sandpipers are cool little birds, easily identified by a host of field marks and behaviors. Their stiff-winged flight is a great way to identify them at a distance, as is their tendency to bob their tail end up and down as they make their way along the edges of ponds, lakes, or virtually any [...]

“If I sees you I will seize you and I’ll squeeze you ’til you squirt.” -Every Warbling Vireo to every caterpillar ever Warbling Vireos are not much to see. They are bland little birds hidden in the trees, only given away by their loud song, most easily remembered by deploying the phrase that caterpillars dread. [...]

The pine barrens of New Jersey look rather plain and boring if you only see them while driving past on the Garden State Parkway or New Jersey Turnpike. There is sandy soil, lots of pine trees, and not much else. But when you get out and explore on foot the variety of life in the [...]

On Wednesday morning I had a meeting in Bayonne, New Jersey for my job and as is my wont I left my house in Queens early to beat the traffic and therefore found myself with a little over an hour to kill before my meeting. Rather than do my usual stroll on the Hudson River [...]

An early outing before work yesterday at Flatrock Brook Nature Center in the unseasonably warm temperatures turned out to be well worth it. Flatrock Brook is in the the city of Englewood, New Jersey, just across the George Washington Bridge from New York City. It is a charming 150-acre nature preserve, surrounded on all sides [...]

Almost every birder who has birded within in the range of Megaceryle alcyon, better known as the Belted Kingfisher, knows the drill. The first moment you are aware of a nearby kingfisher is when you hear its rattling call as it takes off away from you. If you try to get closer looks it just [...]

In Bergen County, New Jersey’s northeasternmost county, there are quite a few small county parks that are popular with dog-walkers, joggers, parents looking for somewhere to take their kids, and teenagers looking for places that their parents aren’t. A category of person that I have not yet met in one of Bergen County’s parks is [...]

Behind the Outback Steakhouse at Edgewater Commons, a shopping center across the Hudson River from New York City, is a rusted pile of wreckage that is gradually falling apart and into the river. I am not really sure what it is or why it has been left to blight a small portion of the view [...]

It’s tough being a New Jersey birder. Jersey has always gotten a bad rap in general (the smells of the turnpike, the Jersey shore, the governor), and in the world of birding, the state often seems to be symbolized by two words: Cape May. And yes, Cape May is incredibly wonderful, with its hawk watch [...]

Sometimes my job, which is for a New Jersey-wide labor union, requires me to meet in Bayonne, across the Hudson River, which at that point is indistinguishable from New York Harbor, from Staten Island. To get there from Queens I have to drive through heavy commuter traffic down into Brooklyn, cross the Williamsburg Bridge into [...]

It is early, pre-dawn, and the sky is just lightening in the east when you arrive.  You park your car, gather your optical equipment, take a last gulp of glorious coffee, and get out of your car.  The whole area is alive with movement and chip notes but you can’t take the time to figure [...]

My successful chase of a Northern Wheatear on Wednesday set my mind to churning and I decided to try to find something else to twitch on Friday morning before work. There were a host of great shorebirds in New York’s Orange County on Thursday early in the day but reports of roads being flooded out [...]

One of the benefits of working for a union that represents workers all over the state of New Jersey is that on occasion I find myself near a great birding location after having finished work for the day.  For example, a couple of weeks ago I found myself with several hours of daylight left and [...]

As I may have mentioned before, I have been spending an occasional hour or so doing the auto loop at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, better known as Brigantine.  One of the amazing aspects of Brigantine in late spring is the sheer volume of turtles one can encounter.  On a single trip I [...]

Despite my manic work schedule of late my positioning in southern New Jersey does lend itself to an occasional, if brief, birding outing when the stars align properly and I am near a birdy spot when I suddenly find myself with a free hour or so.  A couple of times I have had this happen [...]

I usually spot Ruddy Turnstones in winter, hunkered down on windswept jetties being blasted by salt spray in the company of Purple Sandpipers.  Either that, or I see them in spring with hordes of other shorebirds feeding on the eggs of Horseshoe Crabs.  Until last weekend I can’t recall ever spotting a Ruddy Turnstone actually [...]

Everyone knows what a jinx bird is.  It is a bird that dodges you like sanity does Michele Bachmann.  No matter how hard you try to find a jinx bird it eludes you.  They are frustrating, annoying, anger-inducing, and, when you finally find one, amazingly rewarding!  Jinx birds are one of the aspects of birding [...]

Because of my job I have, of late, been spending lots of time in southern New Jersey.  Of course I have not been spending time in the southernmost part of New Jersey because, as  a birder, I could never be lucky enough to have to work in Cape May.  No, I get to be in [...]

I’ll need to borrow some photos from the interwebs for this post because this was some truly spontaneous birding and no camera was present. A few weekends ago, Beth, Julian, and I were out and about running errands. After our errands were done, I realized that we were not too far away from the NJ Meadowlands [...]

A few days ago, a Rufous Hummingbird was banded at a feeder of a birder near Asbury Park, NJ. Rufous/Allen’s-type hummingbirds have become an almost annual fall visitor in NJ since the mid-’90s. NJ also has multiple records of both Black-chinned Hummingbird and Calliope Hummingbird since the mid-90s. In 2005, we were even graced with [...]