One of my targets for my recent trip to the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival was the Florida’s only endemic bird– the Florida Scrub-Jay, a social member of the corvid family. There are 2 other species of scrub-jay, Western Scrub-Jay which I’ve seen in Arizona, and Island Scrub-Jay, which is found on the Channel Islands off the coast of Los … Read More
Long Island Chase – Common Ground-Dove 11/16
I recently took a hiatus from blogging (mostly unintentionally), but would like to change that in upcoming months. In these past few months, I have been getting accustomed to the college life, as I am now an undergrad at Cornell University (in Ithaca, NY). Birding out here is amazing, and the community around Cornell is quite special. Â There are many … Read More
Video! Couch’s Kingbird – Allegany County, Maryland
With CBC season on the horizon, this reminds me of an old saying by one of my favorite compilers. “Any yellow birds?? Anything yellow on a Christmas Bird Count is a good bird!” This is a very improbable bird. What we have here is Maryland’s first record of Couch’s Kingbird (Tyrannus couchii). While November is historically a fantastic month for finding … Read More
One day wonder: Fork-tailed Flycatcher in Illinois!
On Monday, May 12, an email went out to the Illinois birding community that the Bowman brothers (Chris and Mark) had found a Fork-tailed Flycatcher at Gunnar Anderson Forest Preserve in Geneva, Illinois (Kane County). The last Fork-tailed Flycatcher seen in Illinois that many people saw was a one day wonder found by Josh Engel at Paul Douglas Forest Preserve (Cook County) … Read More
The Southern California Coast 3/31 to 4/2
Leaving La Quinta on March 31st, we began the short second leg of our trip with a 3 hour drive to the town of La Jolla (just north of San Diego). Our hotel was on the coast, so I couldn’t wait to get a few new species for my year list. Walking only five minutes, I soon saw lots of … Read More
Winter Waterfowl in Illinois
Last Saturday (the 15th), Michael Retter and Matt Hale drove up from West Lafayette to stay at my house for the weekend (specifically for the Gull Frolic, more on that coming soon). They had to head out on Sunday, but before they left, we birded a bit looking for Scoters on the lakefront. This winter has been quite unlike others … Read More
5 to 500
Every avid lister knows the life list benchmarks. When you start birding you are learning the fundamentals, but in the back of your mind you’re thinking about hitting 100, 200, and 300 life birds. I’ve been birding, listing, and eBirding for about five years now and have tallied almost 500 life birds. Hell, I observed 439 species in 2013 (a … Read More
Nemesis Birding 101
It’s 7am in mid May 2011 on the boardwalk at Magee Marsh, OH when I hear it—chippy chuppy chippy chuppy chip—only a few meters away. My heart starts pounding and I’m peering into dense leafy understory searching out a small yellow and olive bird walking on the ground, feeding spasmodically but hen-like in the dirt and leaves. Where is it? … Read More
Snowy Owl and Purple Sandpipers in Florida – January 7th
I wrote up a post roughly a week ago about birding in Duval and Nassau counties, which can be read here. A few days ago, on January 7th, Dan Irizarry came up once again to try to get the Snowy Owl. The bird had been refound the day after we had tried, and has been seen consistently ever since. Due to … Read More
Cape May Pt SP Snowbirds
After wandering around the streets of Cape May Point for awhile but not being able to turn up the White-winged Dove, we decided to head over to the state park to see what was around. It was incredible to see the park covered in snow. Equally amazing was how active the birds were in the snow-covered, freezing landscape. Along the … Read More