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Now that landbird migration is largely done here in the northeastern United States we birders have to have something on which to focus our attention. Shorebirds and seabirds will serve nicely for a couple of weeks until we hit the summer birding doldrums when birders consider things like butterflies and dragonflies, as heretical as that [...]

The southwestern most part of Queens, at the end of the Rockaway Peninsula, is Breezy Point. The small community out there is lucky to have a large Common Tern colony that also hosts breeding Black Skimmers and Least Terns, to say nothing of the Piping Plovers and American Oystercatchers that breed out on the barrier [...]

Few experiences birding get me more excited than adding a new bird to my Queens list. Of course, as the list grows it gets more and more difficult to add something new to it. My latest addition, a Parasitic Jaeger off the coast, finally got me to my 289th bird, well over a year since [...]

Being a birder and living in Queens as I do I can’t help but be drawn to the waterhole at Forest Park during spring migration. The waterhole, an unassuming little vernal pool, is often the only water in the eastern half of Forest Park which means that any bird that wants a bath or a [...]

Queens, New York, May 2009 May is the month of migration in North America.  Sure, some species move earlier and, of course, in the fall everything turns around and goes the other way, but May stands out as the month when birds that haven’t been seen since the previous fall come back in natty new [...]

Queens, New York, May 2010 At one time there was an airport in northern Queens called Flushing Airport.  It was shut down in 1984 due to frequent flooding, a fatal plane crash in 1977, and the growth of LaGuardia Airport.  The land has since started to return to something approaching a wild state.  Unfortunately, developers [...]

This will be a quick and happy tale. I was at work in New Jersey. An email went out over the listservs that Eric Miller had found a Golden-winged Warbler at Crocheron Park in Queens. I got out of a work a bit early and drove to Crocheron Park. After about a forty-minute vigil the [...]

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.         – Chinese proverb attributed to both Maya Angelou and Lou Holtz   While spring in New York City is great for birders because of the wide variety of colorful migrant birds moving through it is [...]

Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, Queens, NY, April 2010 Everyone knows that New York City is an extremely expensive place to live.  If one is lucky enough to find a place that one likes one must often pay in rent per month what would easily be a mortgage payment in a more sane part of the [...]

Forest Park, Queens, New York, April 2008 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 [...]

Nothing frustrates me more than a report of a good bird that reaches me while I am at work or on my way there. And the frustration is magnified all the more when the bird, like the one Thursday morning, is reported from Queens and is also one that I have not yet seen in [...]

If you see shorebirds on a coastal beach in North America they are most likely Sanderlings (Calidris alba).  If they are running back and forth as the waves ebb and flow they are almost assuredly Sanderlings.  They are the “clockwork toy” birds according to Sibley, “The Bird That Plays Tag with the Waves” according to [...]

Queens, NY, March 2010 For some reason, maybe because of the heroic effort I have made of late to get our new apartment completely unpacked and set up, Daisy agreed to let me out of the house for a few hours Monday morning to take what is perhaps my favorite walk in Queens, which is [...]

Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Refuge, March 2009 It was at about 1:30 AM on Saturday morning that I startled awake and found myself sitting in an empty subway car in an unfamiliar location.  I stepped out of the train and my foggy brain was just realizing that I was at the end of the E [...]

At the tail end of my birding expedition today I was fortunate enough to have a close encounter with an extremely confiding, cooperative, and curious Carolina Wren. I had just arrived at the water hole at Forest Park and was sitting on a log watching White-throated Sparrows forage in the leaves when the wren flew [...]

As regular readers of 10,000 Birds already know, I am enamored of my Queens list. So when a Red-headed Woodpecker was reported on Thursday at St. John’s Cemetery by Daryl Cavallaro (who shared this picture with us awhile back) I was there first thing Friday morning. I searched for about an hour unsuccessfully before I [...]

As I have done all too infrequently of late I spent almost an hour yesterday at Forest Park’s waterhole where intrepid Queens birders feed the birds all winter long. Because I have a two-year-old and a job in New Jersey I have not been one of those making sure the birds get their servings of [...]

Snowy Owls are iconic birds. You rarely find a person – birder or non – who doesn’t want to take a good long look at a bright white owl. And, of course, you rarely meet a photographer who doesn’t want to take a good close picture of a bright white owl. On Saturday, as has [...]

Our late autumn has been absurdly warm in the northeastern United States and though winter is only days away it seems no one has notified the weather.  That is, no one had notified the weather until this past Sunday, the day of the Queens County Christmas Bird Count. While it wasn’t unreasonably cold it was [...]

Finally!  It took long enough but I have finally seen an Eurasian Wigeon in my home borough, at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge’s East Pond to be exact.  It was nice to add bird number 284 to my Queens life list, though it seems kind of absurd that it has taken so long to see one [...]