You are browsing the archives of Twitching.

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 […]

I really should have titled this post “I Love New York!” Why? Because where else can one be at their desk in their office near the end of the work day, get an email about a vagrant western bird in a city park, and be looking at it fifteen minutes after leaving said […]

Chrissy Guarino is a birder’s birder. In using that term I mean that not only does she have the requisite skills in terms of identifying avians but that she also brings a certain joy to birding that sometimes is in short supply on those long hard slogs that may or may not have a […]

When I woke up Saturday morning I didn’t see my shadow, a good sign on Groundhog’s Day. Even better was the fact that I was on my way to Union Square Park to see the Scott’s Oriole again and this time, because I had taken the train from Albany and not stepped foot in a […]

Previously brought to our loyal readers’ attention here, a Scott’s Oriole, normally a denizen of desert landscapes in distant places like Arizona and southeastern California, has decided to grace the citizens of New York City with its presence. And, as if a first state record of a bird wouldn’t be enough to convince me to […]

4:15 AM. Shower, coffee, kiss Daisy good-bye. Rain and cold and dark. Queens Boulevard, Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, Grand Central Parkway, Triboro Bridge, Major Deegan, Thruway, Tappan Zee Bridge, Thruway, sunrise, Exit 23. Home, feed cats, drop off stuff, pick up other stuff. 787, I-90, Northway, Exit 6, Route 7, Rosendale Road. […]

Yesterday was the day I would break 300 birds for the year in New York State. A plethora of rare-for-New York birds had been spotted way out east on Long Island, birds I had been too lazy to chase the previous weekend. This past weekend, however, fueled by fine Thanksgiving food, I knew […]

Up at 4. On the road by 4:45. Dark Adirondacks, cold, long, lonely highway. Dawn. Trees, rock, snow. Exit 39, left on 9, heading north. Geese up and flying west, Snow Geese, several small flocks. Look for left turn, Spellman Road, there, driving west, geese are south. Another […]

Today I had the full day free to bird the environs of New York City, so, of course, the winds stayed out of the south and no new migrants came in for my birding enjoyment. But Mike, my bird-blogging cohort, was free to do some birding, and, even better (no offense Mike), the American […]

The Eurasian Collared-Dove is a (surprise!) Eurasian species that was introduced in the Bahamas, spread to Florida, and has slowly but surely expanded its range north and west across the southeastern United States. It is a still-rare visitor to New York but one was reported recently in Port Crane, a small town in New […]

When I posted my pelagic preview last week I was hoping that I would manage to see my four-hundredth bird at sea on Sunday. I didn’t anticipate birding that would result in a lifer prior to the pelagic, as Daisy had put her foot down about my doing any birding this past weekend other […]

When I saw the post on the New York State listserv that a Cattle Egret, and sometimes two Cattle Egrets, had been seen in Drake Park in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx I knew I had to make a stop there on my way back upstate. Not only so I could […]

When a Curlew Sandpiper, a European species of shorebird I have never seen, was reported from Jamaica Bay last weekend I really wanted to go see it. I decided not to drop everything and go as I was planning on being in New York this weekend anyway, so I asked every birder I knew who […]

Since last Sunday a rare-for-North America Western Reef Heron has been alternately frustrating and rewarding birders from the Empire State and beyond as it appears and disappears from an unassuming stretch of waterfront property in the borough of Brooklyn, New York City. It was back again today and I was in the neighboring borough […]

No that’s not some kind of absurd typo up there. Sunday was all about the search for the Tufted Duck at Ausable Point State Park on Lake Champlain (TUDU is the bird banding code for Tufted Duck). The Tufted Duck is a Eurasian species which occasionally pops up in North America. […]

So I woke up this morning and checked my email. An Ivory Gull in Piermont! What a wonderful opportunity to see this gorgeous species for the first time. Too bad I had to work, and, worse yet, my work would take me to Poughkeepsie, NY, more than halfway to Piermont…so close and […]

After the Adirondacks on Saturday and an out-of-place oriole on Sunday why not my first two longspurs on President’s Day?
Will, who you met Saturday, and I raced down the New York State Thruway President’s Day morning to meet Mike. Our mission was to find the Lapland Longspurs and Smith’s Longspur that have been frequenting […]

About two weeks ago word went out on the New York listservs that a Bullock’s Oriole was frequenting feeders on Tremper Road in the tiny town of Phoenicia, NY, a mere twenty-five minutes from my hometown. Bullock’s Oriole is the western version of the Baltimore Oriole and the two are so similar that they […]