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Saturday the 29th was the last day of my New York State Big Year seeing as Sunday saw me on a plane bound for sunny southern California. Because we were flying out of LaGuardia Airport Daisy and I were in Queens, the perfect base of operations for finding the vagrant and reliable Townsend’s Solitaire that [...]

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 [...]

Long-eared Owls have long eluded me. Two winters ago Will found some roosting at Five Rivers, one of my favorite local birding spots, while I was in California. When I came home I scoured Five Rivers in the freezing cold and snow three times and never found a single owl but later found out [...]

Niagara Falls is a world-renowned tourist destination because of, well, the really freaking big waterfalls there. Because of the monstrous falls a host of tourist traps, from casinos to mini-golf, have sprung up, to say nothing of industrial projects (mostly on the American side) that take advantage of the hydro-electric power generated by the [...]

When one is doing a Big Year in New York one must go on pelagic trips. As many as possible. Because I wasn’t doing a Big Year at the beginning of the year I didn’t go on the February trip out of Freeport so I had a giant hole in my year lists where wonderful [...]

Saturday I was down in New York City once again and because Daisy has law school finals to study for I had plenty of free time so I went shopping at the mall. Ha! Of course I didn’t go shopping: I went birding. Because I had promised Daisy a ride to her [...]

4:15 AM. Shower, coffee, kiss Daisy good-bye. Rain and cold and dark. Queens Boulevard, Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, Grand Central Parkway, Triboro Bridge, Major Deegan, Thruway, Tappan Zee Bridge, Thruway, sunrise, Exit 23. Home, feed cats, drop off stuff, pick up other stuff. 787, I-90, Northway, Exit 6, Route 7, Rosendale Road. [...]

Pink-footed Goose. Barnacle Goose. Western Kingbird. After seeing those three birds in the first thirty seconds of actually birding on Sunday it would be difficult to do any better for the rest of the day but Jory and I were sure as heck going to try. First, we headed out to [...]

Yesterday was the day I would break 300 birds for the year in New York State. A plethora of rare-for-New York birds had been spotted way out east on Long Island, birds I had been too lazy to chase the previous weekend. This past weekend, however, fueled by fine Thanksgiving food, I knew [...]

After a late night playing poker with my father and his friends (and getting my butt kicked, I might add) I headed down to Daisy’s house and we got to sleep at some time after two AM. So when my cell phone rang at ten to seven on Saturday morning, you can understand why I [...]

Up at 4. On the road by 4:45. Dark Adirondacks, cold, long, lonely highway. Dawn. Trees, rock, snow. Exit 39, left on 9, heading north. Geese up and flying west, Snow Geese, several small flocks. Look for left turn, Spellman Road, there, driving west, geese are south. Another [...]

This is a big year for winter finches! Already John of A DC Birding Blog has summarized Ron Pittaway’s Winter Finch Forecast for 2007-2008 and Nicholas of Biological Ramblings has posted on the Invasion of Winter Finches, to say nothing of the Backyard Finches Drew of The Nemesis Bird has spotted or the irruptive [...]

Light winds out of the north-northeast. Snow flurries. High temperature of 41 degrees Fahrenheit. What better forecast could I ask for when planning to stand on a ridgetop all day long looking for a Golden Eagle, a raptor that has avoided my gaze all year? I’d also have the chance to [...]

After spending the whole morning and into the early afternoon of Election Day birding our way from Ferd’s Bog to Ausable Point State Park, Will and I turned south along the lake shore to see what there was to see. We were not disappointed. Our first stop, after our required refueling at a [...]

Rather than reliving the rather boring experience of not finding an Orange-crowned Warbler at Alley Pond Park I figured I would (finally) wrap up blogging about my birding this past Saturday. Long story short: Alley Pond Park had some good birds like an Ovenbird and a juvenile Mourning Warbler but no Orange-crowned Warbler appeared [...]

After leaving the still-foggy Jones Beach behind I followed Sam, a local birder, over to Cow Meadow Park and Preserve, a Nassau County Park with a huge marsh, some good brushy habitat, and a pond surrounded by vegetation. The goal was to see a Whimbrel, a quixotic quest that was totally unsuccessful, mostly because [...]

In all the fuss and frenzy of trying to do a Big Year in New York I’ve been all over the state but when I get some time during the week I get out to the local patches pretty often too. After all, regardless of rarities, it is the local locations in which I [...]

Once again I was required by my job to take the two-hour drive west on I-88 to Binghamton, New York. So, foolhardy and obstinate birder that I am, I awoke well before dawn so I could spend some quality time searching for the Eurasian Collared-Dove that had avoided my gaze on my last attempt. [...]

So far this year in New York I have seen Red-eyed Vireos, White-eyed Vireos, Warbling Vireos, Yellow-throated Vireos and Blue-headed Vireos. The Philadelphia Vireo, which nests much further north and only in scattered locations in the Adirondacks, has eluded me. Eluded me, that is, until Sunday.
On Sunday morning at 6:30 AM a fellow [...]

…Warblers.
At least this year. What other reaction can I have to the evil little bird snubbing me at Central Park, avoiding me at Floyd Bennett Field, and leaving me standing in the rain for two hours at Muttontown Preserve? That’s right, Muttontown Preserve. But before I get to the whole sordid story let me [...]