I have said it a thousand times, and I will say it a thousand more: autumn is my favorite season in the birding world. The madcap excitement of spring, the vibrant heat of summer, and the quiet coziness of winter all have their charms, but the unbridled potential and protracted duration of fall migration are unparalleled as far as I am concerned. I look forward to the months of September through November all year, every year. 2025 has been no exception, featuring a steady stream of incredible vagrants and magnificent prizes. Even considering my busy schedule at the start of a new schoolyear, there have been ample opportunities to savor the fruits of the autumn avian harvest in the past few weeks. The discovery of an East Coast first Arctic Warbler at Randall’s Island certainly set the tone for the season with an indisputable early peak, but the rest of the fall has proven to be similarly productive, keeping pace with the high standard set by our late September megararity.
Although our fair Island would have been hard-pressed to surpass the spectacular vagrant Phylloscopus that turned our world upside-down, there were still plenty of other goodies to be enjoyed at our beloved patch over the course of the season. I picked up a handful of new species for my 2025 year list, including American Golden-Plover, Red-headed Woodpecker, and Vesper Sparrow, and I also enjoyed encounters with other regionally uncommon migrants like Philadelphia Vireo, Snow Bunting, and Eastern Bluebird on recent outings. On the non-avian front, a few of us got to watch a pair of seals fishing the waters of the East River during one of our latest visits! Photo review confirmed that while one of these individuals was the more expected Harbor Seal, the other was a Gray Seal, rarely seen away from the immediate ocean coast. Even smaller scale treats, like a close and confiding cohort of fresh baby Brant or a skittish American Woodcock lurking in the leaf litter, never fail to bring a smile to my face. Patch birding is genuinely one of my favorite pastimes, and it never ceases to amaze me that such an unassuming little scrap of habitat can produce so many remarkable rarities. The world of birds is full of surprises!
Even though the start of the schoolyear typically leaves me with less free time than I might like, New York City’s well-established migrant trap potential periodically provides me with opportunities for brief birding detours on my commute home. This fall has been quite fruitful in this regard, highlighted by such incongruous sights as a Virginia Rail creeping around in a planting plot outside a fast food restaurant or a Connecticut Warbler boldly strutting about at the feet of passing pedestrians. A transient Barred Owl that spent a few days roosting in Central Park was another noteworthy guest that necessitated a post-work jaunt to Manhattan. We even hosted a shockingly accommodating Yellow-breasted Chat at the same exact plaza where I enjoyed my career best views of the species a few short years ago, a strange and surprising repeat performance for this famously furtive critter. The regular recurrence of scarce, secretive birds in these public park settings showcases just how invaluable even the tiniest green spaces can be, while also underscoring the inherent dangers that the City poses to migratory wildlife. Migration is a grueling ordeal under the best of circumstances, and there is no doubt that our urban environment presents an especially challenging obstacle course for the birds that pass through our region. One can only hope that these wayward wanderers manage to build their strength up and successfully escape the gauntlet of reflective buildings and disorienting lights that stand between them and more suitable wintering habitat.Â
Whenever I did find myself with a wide enough window for a foray further afield on the weekends, I prioritized outings to the nearby coast in the hopes of picking up some overdue year birds. A September trip to Jamaica Bay furnished me with my long-overdue first Eared Grebe for Queens, and I also enjoyed a stellar photoshoot with an uncharacteristically cooperative Baird’s Sandpiper on the beach at Point Lookout. I did a bit of stormbirding during an October nor’easter, securing Parasitic Jaeger for my 2025 list during a seawatch at Robert Moses State Park. I even made a few trips to southern Brooklyn, a corner of the City that I only rarely have the opportunity to bird. Two visits to Plumb Beach secured my Nelson’s Sparrow fix for the fall and furnished me with an Ash-throated Flycatcher, and I also made the trek out to Floyd Bennett Field to seek out a Western Cattle-Egret that had been hanging around the overgrown runways. Regarding the latter species, I must confess that my already established fondness for cattle-egrets has increased considerably in the wake of my honeymoon in Kenya last year. There is something undeniably special about seeing this ecologically fascinating bird, which I last observed in the company of herds of elephants, right here in New York!
Autumn is widely thought of as peak rarity season in the birding community, and this year has seen an impressive parade of spectacular vagrants popping up all across the continent. New York State, in particular, has been on a dramatic hot streak ever since the little lost leaf warbler graced our shores, with several magnificent megas jockeying for position on the podium of top finds for 2025. Perhaps the most exciting bird of the bunch was a juvenile Common Cuckoo that turned up out in Riverhead in late October, only the fourth time that this Eurasian species has ever been sighted in the Lower 48! An observant non-birder happened to notice the unusual bird while playing a round of golf, resulting in a circuitous but astonishingly efficient game of telephone that saw the news reaching the birding community within hours of the initial sighting. Given my intense admiration for all things cuckoo, I was quick to make chase, setting out for eastern Long Island with Brendan and Ryan in the wee hours of the morning. To the collective relief of the assembled horde, the cuckoo appeared on the scene shortly after sunrise. It subsequently spent much of the weekend actively prowling the farm fields, laying waste to countless caterpillars and perching up prominently on fenceposts. While many New York birders had speculated about the possibility of this iconic species one day finding its way to our home state, it was still an unbelievable shock to see these long shot dreams finally come true. I definitely did not expect to get reacquainted with this remarkable bird on this side of the Atlantic so soon after my first encounter in Rhode Island back in 2020, but I was absolutely thrilled to upgrade that experience into a twice-in-a-lifetime occurrence!
Word of the cuckoo sighting unexpectedly managed to break into the mainstream media, an honor typically reserved for avian superstars like flamingos and eagles. A number of my friends, coworkers, and extended family reached out to me unprompted to ask about the rare bird that was mentioned on their local news station or their favorite sports podcast. While the amusingly serendipitous nature of the discovery certainly helped to grab the public’s attention, the scale at which this story made headlines was nevertheless impressive. I attribute the widespread fascination with this record to the deeply ingrained cultural significance of this species. Most folks are at least passingly aware of cuckoos as a concept, though they may not realize that they actually exist outside of clocks, and thus many people who have never seen the birds in life still understand that they are bizarre and unusual animals. With its wild-eyed expression, odd proportions, and surprisingly substantial heft, the Common Cuckoo in particular is an innately striking creature. In a truly stacked line-up of recent rarity reports, this transatlantic traveler undoubtedly stands out as one of the most memorable events of the season.
The month of October closed out with an especially timely vagrant: a handsome male Varied Thrush that set up shop on the outskirts of Prospect Park. NYC birders were treated to singularly spectacular views of the bird’s Halloween-appropriate orange and black plumage as it foraged along the fringes of footpaths and lawns, a welcome departure from the frequently tricky viewing opportunities that these furtive forest-dwellers usually present. With such a stunningly cooperative bird on offer, I was unable to resist the draw of an extended diversion to Brooklyn on my way home from work. My best chance for a chase arrived on the same day as our school’s Halloween festivities, which saw me dropping by the stakeout site still sporting some faint red stains from the fake blood of my own costume. The thrush, thankfully, did not seem the least bit bothered by my somewhat frightful appearance!
The rarity train kept on rolling into November, kicking off The Weird Month with a a report of an unusual goose tooling around the northern shore of Nassau County. First responders following up on the alert quickly confirmed the community’s suspicions that the bird in question was a Tundra Bean-Goose, only the third documented record of the species for New York State and the long-awaited first for Long Island! I managed to slip away for my own wild goose chase in between my remote professional development meetings on the first Tuesday of the month, adding to an impressive roster of Election Day observations that includes vagrants such as Corn Crake, Calliope Hummingbird, and Bullock’s Oriole. One of the many benefits to voting by mail is that it frees up a bit of extra time for birding! I initially connected with the bird at Beaver Lake, where I was able to enjoy close-up views as it paddled about alongside its carrier flock of Canada Geese. This presented a great opportunity to study the maddeningly subtle structural differences that separate this species from Taiga Bean-Goose, including the shorter neck, rounder crown, and more prominent “grin patch” on a stouter, deeper-based bill. Adding both of the bean-geese to my life list via observations of vagrants in my home state was certainly one of the bigger surprises of 2025; I did not expect to receive so thorough an education in sorting out these two taxa this year! Upon wrapping up my afternoon obligations, I received word that the goose had relocated to a pond at a nearby country club, so I stopped by to savor a few extra minutes with my latest lifer before turning my car back towards home.Â
While I have clearly made the most of the weekends and scattered days off throughout the autumn months, a considerable portion of my birding time during the schoolyear is limited to morning and afternoon skywatches on the roof of my apartment building. Jacqi and I have known for a while now that our current lease at this address will probably be our last, with our lives fast outgrowing the one-bedroom unit where we have lived for the past 3.5 years. As excited as I am to begin a new chapter next spring, I still want to put up as strong a showing as possible during the remainder of my time here in Astoria. This apartment is the first residence where I have logged over 100 species, and I have had my sights set on the milestone of 150 ever since I cracked into the triple digits. A remarkably productive summer season delivered an impressive grab bag of seemingly unlikely additions, including White-rumped Sandpiper, Lesser Black-backed Gull, and Orchard Oriole, which left me well-positioned to achieve my goal even earlier than expected. No longer content to reach my established objective by the time we move out, I was now intent on seeing my 150th roof bird before the end of 2025. Yard listing is a game that we play with ourselves anyway, right? Might as well up the stakes to keep things interesting!
The first act of fall migration ushered in a number of major migratory movements that I was fortunate enough to observe from my apartment, but most of these flights were composed of species that I had already documented in past seasons. I did manage to pick up a single new roof bird during the month of September, recording the distinctive flight calls of a Gray-cheeked Thrush floating down from the dusky skies overhead before dawn. In October, my compulsive habit of checking the tiny sliver of water visible from just one corner of the rooftop finally paid off when the local pair of Mute Swans briefly floated into view. November, true to form, delivered a one-two punch of epic proportions with a pair of exceptional vagrants. The first, often predicted but never truly expected, was a lone flyby Cave Swallow, part of a major regional incursion that saw hundreds of these Southwestern specialties displaced to the lakeshores and ocean coasts of the Northeast. Comparably shocking, at least in a vismig context over New York City, was a Greater White-fronted Goose that I spied winging its way south with a skein of Canada Geese. While the smaller size and more compact structure of this bird clearly stood out from its burlier brethren, the harsh backlighting in my subpar doc shots meant that its specific field marks were not immediately clear upon initial back-of-camera review. Fortunately, the same flock was independently picked up by Adam as it passed his vantage point in Manhattan, and his superior photos helped us to quickly nail down the identification with certainty. What a thrill to finally secure my 150th roof bird via an unexpected regional rarity, and so much the better that I got to share the experience with a good friend! At this point, I just want to see how far I can push my tally before we eventually move out. I still have the entirety of the winter and a whole spring migration season yet to come, after all. Having arguably peaked as an apartment lister at this point, I am honestly kind of looking forward to trying my hand at maintaining a proper yard list in the not-too-distant future!Â
As autumn slowly winds down and winter’s chill gradually sets in, I find myself standing on the precipice of several major life changes. With the recent arrival of our firstborn child, Jacqi and I will undoubtedly be spending a lot of time close to home in the coming months, and we will presumably begin searching in earnest for new lodgings before too long. In all honesty, I am very much looking forward to a slower-paced season after all of the thrilling adventures this fall produced. My memories of far-flung vagrants and lively morning flights will keep me plenty warm while we are all bundled up indoors together, and I am confident that whenever I do find the opportunity to venture out there will be exciting birds to be seen. That is the true beauty of this thing we do. Wherever we are, whatever may be going on in our lives, there is always something awesome happening in the natural world. This most recent autumn was a fantastic reminder of that enduring truth.