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On the day after the most epic day of hurricane birding I’ve ever experienced I, like quite a few other New York State birders, was out again searching for one more storm-tossed rarity.  I decided to focus my attention on the coast of Queens both because I wanted to add some birds to my Queens [...]

Though they have a world-wide distribution and can be found on every continent except Antarctica, Caspian Tern Hydroprogne caspia is a bird that is not often spotted in Queens.  Before this past Saturday I had only ever seen one in Queens, back in 2007, and eBird only has records of nineteen different Caspian Terns ever reported in Queens, [...]

Common Terns nest in colonies.  The sheer number of birds packed together offer some protection to both the adult birds at the most vulnerable point in their lives and to the young.  Any predator that shows up will be dive-bombed by a host of terns all defending their own nest and offspring but collectively protecting [...]

There are foods that are not easy for the uninitiated to eat.  Pomegranate is one, especially if you don’t realize that the seeds are the food.  Lobster comes in its own armor and can be quite messy.  Lychee doesn’t even seem edible until you remove the tough outer layer.  It is always best to have [...]

The IOC World Bird list proposed a number of unconventional bird names, most notably the Great Northern Loon (Gavia immer) and the Roughleg (Buteo lagopus). One proposed change was Angel Tern, a new name for the angelic White Tern. The name wasn’t proposed to settle a trans-Atlantic dispute like the previous two names, but instead [...]

Arctic Terns are a rarity in New York State.  But Sterna paradisaea can be found pretty much every year at Cupsogue Beach County Park on Long Island in very small numbers and only during the summer.  Shai Mitra has already done an excellent job on this blog of explaining the methods that must be employed to [...]

I’ve spoken before about the time I was lucky enough to work on Tern Island in French Frigate Shoals. Part of the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge, it is an amazing place to take in the seabirds of the North Pacific. Last time I talked about the amazing Great Frigatebirds, today I’ll introduce the birds [...]

Until recently I had only ever seen a single Sandwich Tern.  It was back in July of 2009, the day that I saw more species of tern than any other day of my life, and I have no pictures of my first Thalasseus sandvicensis because I had managed to forget my digiscoping adapter that day.  You [...]

On a recent all-too-brief visit to that Mecca of birding in my home borough I was doing my best to get some good flight shots of the Forster’s Terns, Common Terns, and Least Terns that were frequenting both the West Pond and the bay across the trail.  I didn’t get much that was usable, but [...]

I could watch terns all day long.  Flying, hunting, calling, preening, or just sitting around, I find terns fascinating.  It just seems so improbable that creatures that live in the air and on land could evolve to catch creatures that live in the water, but, of course, terns can and do.  On my last visit [...]

Birds make other birds.  This is a simple fact of life.  Birders watch birds.  This too is a simple fact.  Sometimes birders watch birds making other birds.  This is kind of cool, kind of creepy.  Sometimes birders take pictures of birds making other birds.  This is kind of weird.  Sometimes birders share the pictures of [...]

When we left our intrepid pair of birders we had thoroughly enjoyed the appetizers of seawatching and sparrow-seeking and were hungry for the main course of rare-for-New York terns.  Forgive me if I stretch the gastronomic analogy a bit too far, but Patrick and I could practically taste the Sandwich Terns that we were sure [...]

Five years ago the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service set a five-year goal of 500 adult Least Terns and 125 fledglings per year along the Arkansas River in Oklahoma.  A recent survey found 619 adults and 211 fledglings, which is simply great!  And, if you happen to be visiting Tulsa, Oklahoma, you can apparently see [...]

I’ve already shared some pictures from this past Saturday’s trip out along the south shore of Suffolk County looking for shorebirds.  The guy I traveled and birded with, Andrew, has already posted his account of the day on Birding Dude.  So why am I writing another post about the time we spent searching for birds?  [...]

When the birding day starts with a frantic search through a backpack for a digiscoping adapter at the first birding stop one would think that the day was doomed.  That is kind of how I felt when Andrew Baksh and I arrived at Jones Beach early on Saturday morning and I realized that I had [...]

Shai Mitra is a birder-extraordinaire, a wonderfully patient teacher, a member of the New York State Avian Records Committee, and editor of The Kingbird, the peer-reviewed publication of the New York State Ornithological Association.  He was also nice enough to give directions to good birds in Suffolk County when a pair of bird bloggers headed [...]

This past Sunday I mounted a full expedition out to Suffolk County on Long Island with Andrew Baksh, otherwise known as Birding Dude.  We saw a bunch of great birds (a full post on the day is in the hopper) but an Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea) was easily the best bird of the day, at [...]

After having a blast touring the Swarovski headquarters and trying my hand at digiscoping last Thursday, we bird bloggers visiting New England for the Swarovski bird blogging summit headed to the beach on Friday.  No, we weren’t going to improve our suntans and our swimming strokes: we were going for the birds!  And we had high [...]

Terns have it tough.  Everyone in the world seems to know about gulls, but unless you’ve spent time in the company of seabirds or seabirders, you’ve probably missed out on the more lithe and lovely larids! Terns are mostly medium-sized flying seabirds in the family Sternidae or subfamily Sterninae depending on your taxonomy.  Relatives of [...]

There is a perversity in going after shorebirds at the peak of spring migration, that point in time when virtually any American songbird imaginable might turn up in a treetop near you, in full breeding regalia no less. But when an elusive species like Gull-billed Tern elects to abide in one spot long enough for [...]