Week 1: So it begins Even though the first waves of Neotropical migrants typically arrive before the calendar changes to the fifth month, most East Coast birders would agree that May is the peak of the excitement. This year, some of my migration highlights came a little early. A few advance bouts of favorable conditions brought Prairie Warblers, Northern Parulas, … Read More
Tim’s Tips for Surviving the Birding Doldrums
Not all months are created equal. Seasonal changes can be a double-edged sword, and the same natural cycles that provide fresh turnover in avian activity can also result in relative droughts when birds seem few and far between. Here in New York, March is consistently the least exciting stretch of the year. With wintering species disappearing and the prospect of … Read More
Get ready for eBird Profiles!
eBird is slowly and steadily becoming the go-to bird observation collection tool for birders around the world, and has reached this point by regularly releasing new tools to see what others are reporting, compete with your fellow birders on any geographical level, and learn all about ranges and distributions of birds on a global scale. While it has been game-changing to … Read More
Big Years ending, more starting up!
The start of a new year is a great time to look at all of the Big Years that were completed in 2015, and the new efforts that are just starting. There were some very notable big year efforts in 2015, and some equally World Big Year With 6,042 species, Noah Strycker not only passed the old record…he thoroughly crushed it and … Read More
Borneo Big Day
Hank Aaron, Edmund Hillary, Billy Mitchell: record holders and champions of their respective fields. While a big day of birding isn’t exactly the same as reaching the summit of Everest or holding the highest score in Q*bert, the task of racking up as many species as possible in 24 hours can be daunting in its own right. Make the birding location … Read More
Almost a nemesis
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