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It’s been eight days since my trip on Friday, 3 July, to upstate New York to see the Mississippi Kite and I still haven’t told the full tale of the trip.  That will now be rectified with apologies for the two of you who have been sitting on the edge of your seat constantly hitting [...]

Business brought me out to Orange County, CA for a week in mid-October. Despite the length of my stay, I had precious few available moments for birding. My dear pal Amy brought me for some Upper Newport Bay birding not once but twice. The first attempt was undermined by the severity of Santa Ana winds [...]

Upper Newport Bay has a sterling reputation as a locus for some of the best coastal Orange County birding around. This is a big deal, considering both the outstanding avifauna this part of California can deliver as well as the other superlative sites along this stretch of the Pacific. Unfortunately, my first taste of [...]

Business has brought me once again to a shiny section of the Golden State. It is the height, indeed the very definition, of privilege to rise up after breakfast over a variegated expanse of autumn hues to arrive for lunch in a portion of the Pacific coast where one is far more likely to spot [...]

Curt McDermott is a birder in Orange County, New York. He has an amazing array of feeders up in his small suburban yard that attracted an amazing bird and flocks of birders this winter. As of this posting the bird is still being seen daily. Curt has been a gracious host to [...]

Forgive me for throwing this story of a birding adventure out onto the internets before the tale of the three 10,000 Birds bloggers getting together on Friday for the first time, which you will all get to read about soon enough, but I saw some pretty darn cool birds today and I couldn’t wait to [...]

Even after unparalleled birding in Bolsa Chica and San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary, Amy and I chose to press on. We eschewed further coastal wetlands at Newport’s Back Bay for the leafy shelter of Huntington Beach Central Park. A big draw to Huntington was Corey’s report of Tricolored Blackbird at the horse stables, right along the [...]

After an outstanding circuit of San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary, the intrepid Amy Hooper introduced me to the manifold wonders of the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve. This swath of coastal wetland off the shore of Huntington Beach is like no other place I’ve seen. Bolsa Chica is, at least in midsummer, all about terns. Thousands of [...]

My visit with my friend Jay, fantastic as it was, couldn’t be about birding. That essential activity was reserved for the next day, when I had the pleasure of meeting up with the WildBird herself, Amy. Last year, when Amy came out to my neck of the woods, we had a grand time at Jamaica [...]

Once our ceremonial duties at Jay and April’s wedding were concluded, it was time to move south to visit old friends in Orange County. We wished the happy couple the best of luck and took off. But first, we had to go back to Sepulveda Basin! We saw all of the birds [...]