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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 [...]

Well, maybe that isn’t exactly what happened here but police officers from New York were told to stop messing around with Fred the pigeon.  Seriously. Don’t the cops have some occupiers to arrest or something?

This morning a plane taking off from LaGuardia Airport in New York City hit a bird, which caused engine failure.  The plane landed safely and no one was hurt.  This is after two years of geese killings in New York City, ostensibly to thin the flocks and protect civilian aviation.  Anyone want to bet that [...]

Returning to New York, however briefly, has been a joyful reunion — not just with old friends, but with my beloved, quirky New York City birds. Shortly after I arrived I got word of the Gray-hooded Gull at Coney Island, and of course I went after it right away. Unlike the last megararity at that [...]

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 [...]

New York City is well known as a city of immigrants so it makes sense that the only lizards living within the five boroughs are immigrants as well.  Our northern winters and highly developed landscape make New York City inhospitable to most species of lizard and it is no surprise that the two species that [...]

New York City offers the best wood-warbler watching of any city in the United States or Canada.  Sure, Chicago has a magic hedge, Boston has a cemetery, and other cities must, on occasion, attract some Parulidae, but none can even compare to the marvel that is migration in The Big Apple.  Attention is often and [...]

This spring has been rather lousy so far.  Like, really lousy.  Like, really cold, really wet, really windy, and almost completely lacking in days off work.  Of course, that is just my perspective and I have been known to think that birds that don’t show up until May are late if they aren’t here by [...]

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 [...]

The American White Pelican Pelecanus erythrorhynchos that was first reported from Jamaica Bay on Wednesday, 14 July, (and that I twitched on 15 July) was still present in the same spot as of yesterday.  Those who have gone looking for it in the afternoon during or after the high tide have not seen it while [...]

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, can one miss [...]

I have spent many of my lunch hours over the last several months in Central Park.  As spring has sprung and the sun has come out and the weather warmed I have been in the park almost every day, scarfing up spring migrants like a starving man who finds himself at an all-you-can-eat buffet.  Now, [...]

It’s not every day that one has a discussion about a spate of recent Common Raven Corvus corax sightings in one’s home borough.  It is even less common for such a conversation to lead to one of the participants claiming that not only are ravens common in his neighborhood but that they even nested there [...]

I have moved!  And by I, I mean me, Daisy, Desi, the cats, and, soon, Daisy’s mom will be joining us as well.  Our weekend-long moving odyssey went smoothly and the unpacking is mostly done, though I doubt it will ever be completely done.  Our wonderful new apartment in Forest Hills, Queens,  is light-filled and [...]

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 [...]

New York City’s subway stations are a great place to observe Rattus norvegicus, otherwise known as the Norway Rat, the Brown Rat, the Wharf Rat, the City Rat, the Alley Rat, the Hanover Rat, the House Rat, and the Sewer Rat, among other names.  And while New York City, like cities on every continent except [...]

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 [...]