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Two of the more recognizable butterflies of the northeastern United States were kindly enough to pause in front of my camera lens of late, the Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus) and the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus).  Both are bigger butterflies than the skippers I’ve recently seen, and both are strikingly colored and rather common, but, […]

It was while watching flocks of shorebirds on Friday on Cape Cod (an adventure I will soon describe) that I first heard of a Red-necked Stint being found at Jamaica Bay.  I got back-to-back calls that I let go to voicemail from Jory and Will, my upstate birding buddies, and when I checked my voicemail […]

Friday night my parents, Daisy and I enjoyed a baseball game at Shea Stadium, just up the road from my apartment.  The St. Louis Cardinals, the team with the best fans in baseball (and the fact that my father and I are die-hard Cardinals fans does not prejudice me at all), were in town for […]

The shorebird time is upon us.  The time of heat and mud and undying stench.  The time of bloodthirsty mosquitoes and ravenous deer flies.  The time of heat shimmer, feather wear, and sweat streaming into eyes.  The time of spotting scope, rubber boots, and odd looks on the bus.  Shorebirds suck.
Which is why I didn’t […]

I hoped to see a Black-necked Stilt at the familiar but wonderful Jamaica Bay yesterday, and, well, I did.  It was foraging amid the geese, swans, gulls, terns, ibis, herons, ducks, blackbirds, and swallows at the west end of the West Pond.  Two other birders were already on the bird, or, had been on the […]

I have not been birding enough lately.  Seriously.  Sure, last weekend we had a nice trip to Suffolk County and the week before that I went up to Doodletown but that’s it.  Once a week is not enough birding!  June in New York City is hot, and when it isn’t hot lately it’s raining or […]

The alarm went off at 5 AM on June 1st. I had to turn it off and get out of bed quickly to avoid a slow and painful death at Daisy’s hands (5 in the morning on a Sunday! What is wrong with you!?!). I managed to get out of the room […]

I bird in Forest Park a lot. You know, in case you haven’t noticed,I figured I would point that out. I’ve seen two life birds there this spring, a Kentucky Warbler, which was a very quick twitch, and a Gray-cheeked Thrush, a bird I have probably seen before but failed to identify. […]

The other day when I woke up it was to the jumbled song of a Canada Warbler. At first I thought that it was a weird dream, the product of too much birding and not enough sleep during the month of May’s migration but then I looked out my window and wow! In […]

After walking what felt like halfway across Queens I arrived at Flushing Meadows Park and found it totally packed with people. There were soccer players, remote-control car racers, barbecuers, and a whole host of other folks enjoying the great outdoors. What there was not a lot of was birds. It was frustrating, […]

It was shortly after the Red-necked Phalarope that I had to make a pretty major decision. We, being Mike, Carrie, and me, had received word of an amazing array of wood-warblers in Forest Park, and were practically salivating at the idea of our first-ever Kentucky Warbler. Forest Park is only a quick drive […]

A couple of weeks ago I decided to do a Big Day limited to the borough of Queens and traveling only on foot and by mass transit. Yesterday, Saturday the tenth of May, was the day that I chose to do it, in the hopes that migration would be in full swing without the […]

On Sunday, after returning from upstate, I hustled out the door as soon as I got home and made tracks for Forest Park. The local listservs had been loaded with reports of great birds in Manhattan and Brooklyn but hardly anything had been reported out of Queens. Somehow I doubted that the flood […]

If you are a person who reads this blog regularly you know that I recently moved to Queens and spend quite a bit of my spare time in Forest Park. It is near my apartment, it is beautiful, and it is a great place to see birds. Beyond that though, it is as […]

When the alarm went off at six Sunday morning I briefly contemplated turning it off and staying in bed. But the siren song of birding, represented by an American Robin greeting the gray dawn, dragged me out of bed and into Forest Park. The drizzlymist really limited the usefulness of my binoculars so […]

Yes, it is time once again for the bad rhymes and horrific meter of a birding adventure described in verse. To set the stage I will say that Charlie flew in last Friday night and had to be back to his hotel to get ready to fly back to England by mid-afternoon on Saturday. […]

After my exhausting birding adventures with Mike, Charlie, Jean, and Patrick, which will soon be described in great detail, I’m sure, I had Mike drop me off at, no, not my apartment, but Forest Park! The sun was out and the afternoon was still young. My energy level was at a pretty low […]

On Thursday, a day that I didn’t have to be at work until noon, I, of course, got up early and took a stroll through Forest Park. Well, I didn’t really so much as take a stroll through Forest Park as I took a stroll to the water hole in Forest Park and sat […]

After birding Jamaica Bay with Mike on Saturday I had no choice but to walk through Forest Park on my way home after getting off the bus.  Such a tough task but I guess there are worse experiences possible.  The birds were active and I added several new birds to my Forest Park list, now […]

No, by the title I don’t mean to imply that 6,667 birds were out birding at Jamaica Bay (Why would birds be out birding?  They would be out peopling if they were doing anything). The 2/3 of 10,000 Birds that headed out to the marvelous refuge were Mike and myself, Mike so he could […]