New York is home to an impressively diverse array of natural habitats. The Empire State’s various ecoregions run the gamut from the beaches and marshes of Long Island to the grasslands and high peaks near the Canadian border. The Adirondack Mountains are perhaps the wildest, most distinct region of the state, representing the southern edge of the boreal forest biome … Read More
Afternoon in Cancun
The most cost-efficient option for me to get from the US to Belize this past November was to fly to Cancun, Mexico and then take an overnight express bus to Belize City. Being a birder, I purposely scheduled my flight to arrive in Cancun early so that I could have the entire afternoon to roam around the city before the bus left at … Read More
Rainy Day Birding
Drew, Josh, and I birded a few places this morning and saw a handful of new spring migrants. Despite the rain, our morning was very productive and fun! Click on the links below to see our eBird checklist for that location. We stopped at Julian Wetlands first thing this morning and had 32 species there. A Bank Swallow was perched … Read More
Answers to Forest Fest Mystery Bird Quiz
This past weekend, we celebrated Forest Fest at Penn State. At the festival, the avian outreach class had a table set up that talked about birding, demonstrated bird banding, and led a guided bird walk through the arboretum. We also had 10 photos, that I took, of 10 different species of birds for people to try and identify. Below are the photos … Read More
Idaho Highlights
Anna and I have been working here in Idaho since April 4th. It has been a wonderful and bird-packed three and a half months, but now it must come to an end. On July 11th, Anna and I will begin our road trip down to Blythe, California, where we will be working for the remainder of the summer. For this … Read More
Flammulated Owl Surveys near Ashton, Idaho
Our survey near Ashton, Idaho, was indeed delayed one night due to bad weather, mainly wind. The wind died down over the next day, and we spent most of the day birding at nearby Chester Dam and the riparian area that leads to it. It turned out to be one of our best warbler days in Idaho, including lots of … Read More
First Week of Flammulated Owl Surveys!
This past week instead of searching for curlew nests, my coworker Oly Olson and I went to southeastern Idaho to begin the first week of surveys for Flammulated Owls. Anna stayed behind to keep an eye on the curlews and search for nests. Oly and I visited some really amazing places and this week of traveling around southeast Idaho really … Read More
Banding at the Bald Eagle Birding Festival
Today I spent the day banding with Emily at the Bald Eagle State Park Birding Festival. We set up at 7am for the dedicated few who made it to the park at such an early hour and then decided to keep the nets open for the day because the festival activities mostly started at 4pm. We ended up with over … Read More
Western warblers finally arriving!
I have been spending the past couple weeks recieving text alerts from back home in PA and reading posts on the PABIRDS listserve that have been filled with reports of all the warblers swarming through eastern forests right now and I have been feeling a little left out, since migration is a little behind here in Idaho and up until … Read More
Some sunshine- Yellow Warbler portrait
Friday mornings are banding days at the arboretum and this gets more exciting as migration really goes into full swing. This past Friday’s highlight for me was a bright male Yellow Warbler. This was also the first time I decided to take the Canon SLR down to the banding site with our 70-300mm telephoto zoom and I was glad I … Read More