I’ve always appreciated the seasonality of birding. When you’re paying close attention to the goings-on in the world outside your windows, the annual cycle of nature is conspicuous and easy to track. This visible, reliable schedule has been a major boon throughout the pandemic, which has caused weeks and months to blur together and warp all perception of time. The … Read More
2020 Top 10 Birds
Every year offers a different set of experiences. In 2019, I saw so many lifers that I couldn’t imagine narrowing them down to a Top 10. 2020 stands in stark contrast to last year’s international adventures, and though I managed to make the most of this challenging reality I did not crack into the double digits for new birds observed. … Read More
Mapping the Christmas Bird Count
I thought I would share just a little of the map prep work I did, last minute, for the Syracuse CBC. Hopefully this will help you out in your last minute planning as well. This is particularly useful when covering a new area or doing a new CBC. You might even discover that there are more areas to cover in … Read More
A few highlights from the Lancaster CBC
Yesterday, 31 December — the last day of 2011 — was the 73rd Lancaster Christmas Bird Count. It was an unseasonably warm day for late December in Pennsylvania with an afternoon high of 52 degrees F. I was teamed up with Joe Meloney and Jonathan Heller on the Lancaster County side of the Susquehanna River sector. Similar to the weather, … Read More
Sandhill Crane excitement
I tried to catch a bit of the excitement of seeing the Sandhill Cranes on the State College CBC this past weekend. Make sure you boost the quality of the video up to 720p in the bottom right corner so you can actually see the crane flock in the distance. I hope you get some amusement out of the video. … Read More
State College CBC wrap up
Yesterday was the State College CBC which I have been looking forward to participating in for weeks now. I covered a lot of territory this year, starting at Bear Meadows and Alan Seeger Natural Areas with Alex and Steve. These higher elevation sites have extensive conifer stands so the hope was to find some less common species such as Ruby-crowned … Read More
Avon Park Christmas Bird Count
On January 5th, I was able to help out with a Christmas Bird Count at the Avon Park Air Force Range in Florida. This CBC is entirely conducted within the Air Force Base. Our team consisted of Reed Bowman, Shane Pruett, Anna Fasoli, Jenn Smith, and myself. We started the day off at 5:45am, trying a few locations for Eastern … Read More
Northern Lycoming CBC
This year I decided to try a new Christmas Bird Count, one much further north that had a chance of producing interesting birds such as Rough-legged Hawks, Lapland Longspurs and Northern Shrikes. The CBC that fit this bill and worked for my schedule was the Northern Lycoming CBC. We started owling at 5:30am and focused on two roads that held … Read More