When I first moved into my Astoria apartment in early December, I immediately began keeping a “yard list” of birds seen around my new home. My expectations for the potential of this urbanized neighborhood weren’t particularly high, but I reasoned that watching for birds of note outside my window would be a fun way to pass the time between proper … Read More
Life in Queens: A New Patch
My recent move from Nassau to Queens was one of the final big events in a very eventful 2019. A few months out, I’d consider myself comfortably settled in, and the pros certainly outnumber the cons so far. Somewhere in between “notably shorter, easier commute” and “return to reliance on laundromats” on the Cool-to-Lame Scale lie the changes to my … Read More
Birds We’ve Met Before
Knowingly seeing an individual bird that has been previously encountered is a special treat in the world of birding. Most birders would probably agree that the fascinating life cycles of these wild creatures are among the greatest draws that keep people invested in the hobby. It is a truly remarkable privilege to witness multiple chapters in the stories of specific … Read More
Northeast Goose Finding Tactics
With the Delaware Goose-a-palooza 2016 coming up this weekend, we’ve put together a short summary of the Northeast’s common and unusual goose species and also a few helpful links for participants. Remember that if you haven’t signed up for the event, please email Alan Kneidel and he can register you for a team and goose-searching territory. The objective for each team during the Goose-a-palooza is … Read More
New York Townsend’s Solitaire Plus More
This past Wednesday, Garrett MacDonald, Andrew Dreelin, and I birded in Madison County, New York. Specifically, we decided to chase some Evening Grosbeaks tending to a feeder near the town of Sheds, as well as a continuing Townsend’s Solitaire in Erieville. My classes didn’t start until 12:20 PM on Wednesday, so we were able to have enough time to try and get … Read More
October 12 Hawk Watching at Jo Hays Vista
On Friday, I joined Chuck Widman, Josh Lefever, and Alex Lamoreaux for a day of hawk watching at Jo Hays Vista. Winds were gusty out of the northwest, which brought in a high number of migrant Red-tailed hawks (96 for the day!). At one point we had five in the sky at the same time! Â Sharp-shinned hawks were also … Read More
Centre County Waterfowl Report 2/29/12
Many of us here in Centre County have brought up the idea of trying to coordinate efforts on rainy days when waterfowl could get forced down, by checking every single body of water in the county during the same block of hours, and trying to get a full picture of how the storm affected waterfowl migration. Today everything fell into … Read More
Barnacle Goose – Chester River, MD
Last week Dan Small found a lone Barnacle Goose mixed in with hundreds of Canada Geese along the Chester River in Maryland. My friends and I figured this would be a perfect addition to our four day long ‘Rarity Round-Up’, so we added it in to our plans. This morning we took the ferry over from Cape May and arrived … Read More
Unsuccessful Search for the Mountain Bluebird
This morning Chris Markiewicz and I drove over to Middle Creek WMA to search for the Mountain Bluebird that was found there a few days ago. This would have been a new PA state bird for me but unfortunately we did not see it. We left around 10:00am and there were still birders around searching for the bluebird. If I … Read More
First birds of ’11
I love it. It’s that time of year again when I reset my year list and every single species is just waiting to get back on. It might also be the part of birding that most confuses the non-birders around us. They say, “But you just saw a Cooper’s Hawk yesterday, why are you so excited about seeing it again?”, … Read More
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