10,000 Birds

JUNE 13, 2016

On Sunday, 5 June, word of Jay McGowan finding a Gargeney at Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge in western New York State hit the listservs. Fortunately (for me) Anthony Collerton had made an attempt on the bird earlier in the week but had dipped, only to learn that it was seen several hours after he left. What if we missed it?

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New York Bald Eagle New York City Kazakhstan 100

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 4, 2022

Although Henslow’s had been reliably found in nearby Sharon Springs for many years, the last documented sighting was in 2008, and the sighting startled longtime birders, waking them up to the fact that breeding sites in the state were rapidly being lost.

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Birds Sparrows Connecticut New York 261

10,000 Birds

JULY 8, 2013

The next day many New York birders celebrated Independence Day by mobbing the flats where they all dipped. After we returned home an email went out that the bird had been refound in the evening in the same spot as it had been found on the evening of the 4th. Elegant Tern in New York State. Many birders rejoiced.

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New York South America 2013 New Jersey 150

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 4, 2014

Our campsite was gorgeous North Lake State Park in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, where the air is crisp, the forests are largely intact, and the bears force you to be careful about leaving food out when you go to sleep. And, of course, as I do sometimes, I managed to sneak in a bit of birding. Mom has a bug!

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New York Cooking Chipmunks Owls 174

10,000 Birds

JULY 31, 2020

Sure, they’re always a dependable, can’t-miss tick whenever you need them to be there, whether it’s the first day of the year, or the first few minutes of a Big Day or Christmas Bird Count. But there’s no getting around the fact that the starling is likely the most detested bird on the continent – as far as birders are concerned, anyway.

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Farming New York Breeding Unwanted 179

10,000 Birds

JUNE 9, 2014

On Saturday I awakened at 3:30 AM, tiptoed out of the house as quietly as I could, and headed north and west to Sullivan County, the first of three counties I planned to visit in a series of surgical birding strikes to see (or hear) the birds I had thus far missed this year as they migrated through New York City.

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Breeding New York Breeders Downers 152

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 12, 2012

Originally found on Saturday, 7 January, by Peter Priolo, the Barnacle Goose in these pictures has been present on Eastport Lake in Eastport, New York, since, though it does fly out to feed in nearby fields from time to time. That is, of course, awesome for birders like me who like to see neat geese without having to fly to Europe!

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New York Geese United States Canada 164

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 8, 2011

When you are a New York City-based birder that is pretty pleased with the amount of boxes ticked off on your New York State checklist you would normally want a rarity that you have not seen in the state to show up within an hour drive of your home.

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New York New York City Kazakhstan New Jersey 162

10,000 Birds

JUNE 2, 2014

In winter Dunlin are bland birds, the color of sand on a gray morning. Don’t get me wrong, they are nice to see, mostly because in winter we have so few shorebirds around in New York, but they are definitely not going to be the red-letter bird of an outing. Birds never cease to amaze me. How do they do it?

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Breeding Eggs New York Birds 162

10,000 Birds

APRIL 18, 2012

Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, Queens, NY, April 2010 Everyone knows that New York City is an extremely expensive place to live. Of course, there are more birds than boxes and this is where the raving psycho part of things come in as challengers that lack a nest box try to drive off whichever bird has possession.

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New York City New York Jamaica 2010 166

10,000 Birds

JULY 17, 2020

As we ascend to the height of the season, we become more likely to encounter extreme weather coupled with extremely mundane birding. This is not to say that you won’t find great birds where you are, but only that they will likely be the resident breeders or wintering species you’ve already grown accustomed to.

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2020 Breeders New York Birds 156

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 2, 2020

Just yesterday I learned that the Barn Owl ( Tyto alba ) is the only breeding bird found in New York that has been documented nesting in every month of the year. This bit of trivia was given in an article in my local bird club’s monthly newsletter about the ongoing breeding bird atlas in New York State.

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2017 Barn Owls Rodents Owls 224

10,000 Birds

JUNE 14, 2011

Bobolinks are among my favorite birds. And what kind of bird is black beneath and pale above? The Bobolink is an absurd bird and any birding outing is made better when one spots Dolichonyx oryzivorus. Unfortunately for me and other New York City birders, Bobolinks are hard to come by in our marvelous metropolis.

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Breeding New York City New York 2000 157

10,000 Birds

APRIL 2, 2013

A breeding bird atlas is a special kind of book. For birders, it’s the extremely large book, shelved in a place where it can’t crush the field guides, used to research the history of a bird in their area. Corey did just this in this 2011 posting about Vesper Sparrow Pooecetes gramineus in New York State.

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Pennsylvania Breeding Birds Sparrows 220

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

You want to find a Cave Swallow in New York, huh? Even if the birds are silhouetted you may be able to pick them out by their more flappy flight style. (At But what’s the big deal about seeing Cave Swallows in New York anyway? Not a bad bird at all and well worth looking for if you have the chance. *It

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New York Florida Texas Breeding 104

10,000 Birds

APRIL 18, 2011

Of course, that is just my perspective and I have been known to think that birds that don’t show up until May are late if they aren’t here by mid-April. I tend to get angry when I have not seen the number of birds I think I should have and when I am angry I type fast and crazily. Besides, suffering brings birds, right?

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New York City New York Walruses Birds 162

10,000 Birds

MAY 27, 2013

Now that passerine migration has largely wound down the attention of this New York birder has shifted to seabirds, shorebirds, and the occasional trip looking for breeding birds. Instead, I found two banded birds, which I reported of course. Dunlin in breeding plumage are sexy beasts.

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Eggs New York Wounded Jamaica 145

10,000 Birds

MAY 25, 2020

Though we may not be able to enjoy our normal Memorial Day gatherings one thing is constant whether there is a pandemic, a war, or any other calamity: there are birds. Perhaps for those of us in the northeastern United States the number of birds this weekend has been a bit of a disappoint though. What was your best bird of the weekend?

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2020 United States Breeders Birds 158

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

Birds of Belize by Steve N. Howell and Dale Dyer and Birds of Costa Rica by Dale Dyer and Steve N. Howell joined the field guide roster this spring, very welcome in a year sadly sparse in new titles. Dale Dyer put in years working on his paintings for Birds of Central America , both in the field and in the museum.

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Costa Rica Belize El Salvador Birds 203

10,000 Birds

MARCH 15, 2012

John from A DC Birding Blog , and Patrick from The Hawk Owl’s Nest at Jamaica Bay at 8 AM Saturday morning for some birding. The Red-winged Blackbirds that were busy staking claims to breeding territory by singing from bushes, trees, and marsh plants were not groggy at all.

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New York Honduras Jamaica Geese 162

10,000 Birds

JULY 18, 2022

Not professionally – these people come in SUVs and probably never recapture their gas money from the fish they catch (though come to think of it, neither do I with my bird photos). This is ok as birds do not have teeth anyway). One strange thing about Chongming is the inevitable presence of people fishing. End of side note.

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Birds South Korea Japan Abandon 162

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 4, 2012

Amazingly, it was a visiting birder from New York who discovered Neotropic Cormorants breeding in the Wakodahatchee Wetlands. Congratulations to Ardith Bondi for the great find !

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Breeding Florida New York 162

10,000 Birds

JULY 17, 2020

Our featured spirit this week is Neversink Spirits Gin, the flagship product of Neversink Spirits , a craft distillery in Port Chester, New York. It’s not our first encounter with juniper at Birds and Booze, but this is our first gin, surprisingly. Good birding and happy drinking! Neversink Spirits: Neversink Spirits Gin.

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New York Connecticut Mississippi North America 159

10,000 Birds

MARCH 27, 2021

Spring in western New York was and is a time of melting snow, of ice chunks being rushed along the Niagara River, of when you wondered if this year, would it maybe stay warm in April and not snow again? Baltimore Oriole- one of the more common wintering birds in Costa Rica. More Birds are Singing.

Costa Rica 263

Costa Rica West Virginia Baltimore Virginia 263

10,000 Birds

MARCH 8, 2011

home about advertise archives birds conservation contact galleries links reviews subscribe Browse: Home / Birds / Ring-billed Gulls in Breeding Plumage Ring-billed Gulls in Breeding Plumage By Corey • March 8, 2011 • 3 comments Tweet Share It should come as no surprise to readers of 10,000 Birds that I do not love gulls.

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Breeding 2011 Deer New York 145

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 1, 2019

Of course, I had my binoculars and camera with me because you never know what might show up on the coast and I was pleased to find a trio of Royal Terns present, an adult accompanied by a young bird and an additional adult whose relation to the other two birds I could not discern. The young bird, its parent, and a Herring Gull.

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New York Virginia Breeding Birds 132

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 26, 2020

It was when I searched for migrant birds on gorgeous days of September, usually near the Niagara Gorge, sometimes while fishing for salmon in the powerful green waters. It became one of wet weather, one where the vegetation was always green and leafy, where few obvious signs could be associated with the movements of millions of birds.

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Costa Rica West Virginia New York South America 312

10,000 Birds

JUNE 3, 2015

Our hotel was along the coastal highway less than ten minutes by car from the Cape May – Lewes Ferry, which means it was also ten minutes by car from Cape Henlopen State Park, a marvelous birding hotspot that combines beaches, saltmarshes, and scrub pine forest in perfect proportions for a visiting birder. This one will have to suffice.

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Delaware New York Birds North Carolina 170

10,000 Birds

APRIL 29, 2014

All we do is complain about the lack of migrating birds so far and in New York City if southeast winds are blowing we are nearly despondent because southeast winds mean that the birds are moving north but the easterly component of the winds keep usually keep the bulk of birds to our west.

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New York United States New York City Breeding 215

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 21, 2018

Towns across New York state are celebrating Homecoming this weekend, which seems appropriate from the perspective of cooling temps and the urge to nest ahead of winter’s bite. Birds all across the world are leaving last season’s homes for next season’s breeding or wintering grounds. How about you?

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2018 New York Birds Breeding 113

10,000 Birds

JUNE 12, 2017

Newburgh is a little over an hour north of New York City so I figured I could get a visit in to a few great locations for breeding birds that I hadn’t yet seen this year. But there were even cooler birds to see! Would the birds still be there? Here’s hoping both birds manage to find a mate.

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Wildlife New York Sparrows New York City 115

10,000 Birds

MARCH 12, 2017

Seriously, cardinals are both gorgeous and interesting , but their familiarity across most of North America breeds indifference if not contempt. Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was an easy one to choose. What was your best bird of the weekend? How about you?

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New York City 2017 North America New York 129

10,000 Birds

MAY 1, 2014

The first weekend of May is not a time to ask if one will be birding; that avian observation will ensue is a foregone conclusion. Birds are on the wing AT THIS VERY MOMENT. Even better, many of them, adorned in fresh breeding plumage, are at peak pulchritude. Obviously, you will be birding. Birding May weekend'

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2014 New York Birds Breeding 167

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 4, 2022

The American Birding Association has declared that 2022 is the year of the Burrowing Owl, but if Rosemary Mosco has her way, it will also be the year of the Rock Pigeon. Mosco’s birds (and other creatures in her comics) carry an air of insouciance. I will watch the pigeons of New York City. Watcha looking at, human?”

2018 206

2018 New York City Birds Abandon 206

10,000 Birds

MARCH 28, 2020

A month ago, I was helping fellow birders see their first Emerald Tanagers , their lifer Sunbittern , and wondering where Mary and I could go next, which birds we could chase during the upcoming weekends. As always, they remind me of “winter finches” from birding days back in western New York and southern Ontario.

Costa Rica 215

Costa Rica Birds Spain New York 215

10,000 Birds

JUNE 1, 2021

Audubon guides to birds have been around since 1946. The first guide bearing the National Audubon Society imprint was Audubon Bird Guide; Eastern Land Birds , written by Richard Hooper Pough, and illustrated by Don Eckelberry. Plate 28 from Audubon Bird Guide, Eastern Land Birds, by Richard H. Knopf, 1994/97.

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North America America Birds California Condor 278

10,000 Birds

MARCH 19, 2017

Of course, snow and cold still dominate upstate New York, but beautiful, belligerent Blue Jays don’t much care; some have lingered throughout the dark months, but fresh reinforcements have arrived to stake out territory. What was your best bird of the weekend? Maybe they like tennis? How about you?

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2017 New York Birds Breeding 100