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. So we set to scanning, adding species and birders at a roughly two-to-one ratio. Lots of birders got to see it that day, the next day, and all week long.

New York 100

New York Bald Eagle New York City Kazakhstan 100

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2016

What is the best bird you’ve seen in New York State and why has it stayed in your memory? This is the question I posed to 10,000 Birds readers in celebration of Corey’s first book, the ABA Field Guide to Birds of New York (by Corey Finger, author, and Brian E. So, I treasure every sighting. Or a sequel.)

New York 100

New York Bald Eagle Birds New York City 100

10,000 Birds

APRIL 9, 2018

To get there we would need to get out of New York, through New Jersey into Delaware, and then on through Maryland and Virginia until finally reaching our destination. We broke the drive down into two segments: from New York to Delaware on 31 March and from Delaware to North Carolina on 1 April.

North Carolina 100

North Carolina New York Delaware Puerto Rico 100

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 19, 2015

We have had days of northwest winds in New York and the birds have taken full advantage of the favorable conditions to hightail it south. Though sparrows tend to be the main focus of mid-to-late October birding here in New York City there are still plenty of other birds to see like the Eastern Phoebe up above.

New York City 152

New York City New York Sparrows Eggs 152

10,000 Birds

MAY 2, 2011

The New York Times blog, City Room, will be holding a “ Bird Week &# this week. The city’s avian equivalent of convention season is just around the corner: the second week in May marks the peak of spring bird migration in New York City, with the maximum numbers of species and individual birds passing through town.

New York Times 182

New York Times New York New York City Birds 182

10,000 Birds

JULY 5, 2011

The Spruce Grouse population in New York State is shrinking to near oblivion and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is on the case. Overall, the species is not in danger, as there are large and robust populations further north.

New York 157

New York Endangered Species Species 157

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 28, 2011

What is there to say about a Mountain Bluebird , a bird of the west, of high elevation grasslands, of the Rocky Mountains, in New York State? Mountain Bluebird was my 372nd species of the year , my 478th ABA-area bird , and my 1,048th life bird. I did see it poop four times so it must have been getting something to eat!

New York 198

New York Birds Species 198

10,000 Birds

APRIL 21, 2014

The Great Vly is wonderful wetland that straddles the border of Ulster and Green Counties in New York State’s Hudson Valley. I had no luck with the rails or bitterns but I did manage to see quite a few species, including some that were very cooperative. Red-winged Blackbird singing at the Great Vly.

New York 170

New York Birds Ducks Blackbirds 170

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 26, 2019

Whatever the reason for getting involved with this massive day of birding, every GBD has been a success where literally thousands of species are found by thousands of birders. I have been able to do that in Costa Rica because literally hundreds of bird species can be accessed in a question of hours.

Costa Rica 207

Costa Rica Species West Virginia New York 207

10,000 Birds

MAY 9, 2016

Gray Kingbirds are rarely seen in New York State and when they are they usually are only seen by the person or people who find them or those in the immediate vicinity. We saw Common Gallinules , a nice male Rose-breasted Grosbeak , Bald Eagles , and a Great Horned Owl among the fifty-three species for our checklist.

New York 101

New York Bald Eagle McDonalds Fast Food 101

10,000 Birds

JUNE 8, 2019

Growing up in Niagara Falls, New York, June was a celebration of summer. Growing up birding in Western New York was also a time when the old woods of the Niagara Gorge were punctuated with the songs of hidden Red-eyed and Warbling Vireos and the lazy notes of Eastern Wood-Pewees. We had one in the Arenal area.

Costa Rica 198

Costa Rica Species Birds New York 198

10,000 Birds

MARCH 14, 2012

The New York Times has the story of this most improbable of discoveries.

New York City 158

New York City New York New York Times Species 158

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 18, 2012

After a Tufted Duck was reported yesterday on Long Island I did some figuring and realized that I could go find the bird this morning before work and still, provided traffic wasn’t totally horrific, get to work in New Jersey on time. So I headed out to Huntington Harbor, ran into Anthony Collerton, and eventually found the bird.

New York 140

New York Ducks New Jersey California 140

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Around about the middle of last week there were various and sundry birders from the great state of New York spending a seemingly inordinate amount of time paying attention to the weekend weather forecasts, particularly those that pertained to the marine forecast. … Trips New York pelagic pelagic birding'

New York 204

New York Iceland New York City Suffering 204

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 15, 2015

But I can’t resist getting out to sea and trips organized by Sea Life Paulagics out of Freeport, New York, don’t happen more than a few times a year so I had to go for it. But one gull in particular caused much debate because it couldn’t be fit neatly into a species box. ducks at dawn. Black-legged Kittiwake.

New York 187

New York 2015 Iceland Ducks 187

10,000 Birds

MARCH 27, 2017

Now, those of you familiar with my tendency to chase birds in New York and knowledgeable of the spate of Great Gray Owls we have had in 2017 might question why it took me to nearly the end of March to make a trip upstate to see one. I’m not truncating the list: those are the only species that I saw while I waited.

New York 101

New York Owls Beavers Puerto Rico 101

10,000 Birds

APRIL 27, 2013

After our nature walk we had lunch, and while eating lunch more reports of the phoebe, which is a species I had never seen before in New York State, were coming in over email. Say’s Phoebe Sayornis saya in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York.

New York 166

New York Oakland Birds Species 166

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 31, 2011

2011 was a good year for rarities in New York State and Richard Fried saw almost all of them. His 352 species in the state for the year broke the New York State big year record of 350, which was set by Scott Whittle in 2008. Watch for an interview with Richard in the coming week here on 10,000 Birds!

New York 148

New York 2008 2011 Species 148

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. And I even got to work on time! … a.

New York 163

New York New York City Kazakhstan New Jersey 163

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 4, 2012

Richard Fried spent 2011 doing a New York State Big Year and managed to top the record of 350 species which was only set in 2008 by Scott Whittle. Richard totaled 352 species, an impressive number, by seeing almost all of the regularly occurring New York birds and the vast majority of the rarities that showed up in 2011.

New York 173

New York Puerto Rico 2011 Japan 173

10,000 Birds

MARCH 4, 2013

Sadly, lots of good birds were lacking on our 2 March 2013 trip out of Freeport, New York. Don’t get me wrong, those birds are cool birds, but when you are out in a boat for twelve hours specifically searching for alcids and you only get two of the five species you would expect in New York it is kind of disappointing.

New York 147

New York Iceland Puffins Ducks 147

10,000 Birds

JUNE 15, 2015

It was a pelagic trip organized by See Life Paulagics and it was a pretty memorable trip with five species of shearwater, Leach’s Storm-Petrels , Wilson’s Storm-Petrels , a variety of dolphins, some sharks, and a variety of other sea life. Three South Polar Skuas at once!

New York 162

New York Penguins Sharks Dolphins 162

10,000 Birds

JULY 31, 2020

Starlings, they’ll dutifully explain, are ruthless invasives that have been responsible for the serious declines of several beloved native species, like the Red-headed Woodpecker ( Melanerpes erythrocephalus ) and the Eastern Bluebird ( Sialia sialis ). A starling with nesting material at Normanskill Farm in Albany, New York, in May.

Farming 183

Farming New York Breeding Unwanted 183

10,000 Birds

JUNE 29, 2018

And hey, speaking of empire – is there any more beautiful clap-back to European colonization than the fact that various species of psittacine, exploited and stolen and in so many cases extirpated by eager collectors, have now become noisily acclimatized free-flying life forms in the parks of Brooklyn and San Francisco and especially London?

Species 101

Species San Francisco Rats Zebras 101

10,000 Birds

JULY 26, 2014

Perhaps our outrage at invasive species can be a bit hypocritical at times. Listers are quick to put aside their condemnation of invasive species once they attain that coveted status of exotic: not native, not fully naturalized, but established well enough to be countable by the prevailing authority. That’s where we come in.

Species 160

Species Feral Cats Feral Miami 160

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 22, 2012

We New York birders had a pretty good idea this was coming but Angus Wilson just let the cat out of the bag (Or did he put the crow in the bag?) on the New York State listserv. The Staten Island Hooded Crow will not appear on the New York State checklist because of its uncertain origins.

New York 101

New York New Jersey 2011 Cats 101

10,000 Birds

MAY 18, 2020

A weekend that included well north of a hundred species is a difficult weekend for which to decide what is the Best Bird of the Weekend and Corey had that enviable task this weekend.

2020 352

2020 Jamaica New York Birds 352

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. There were actually quite a few more shorebird species roosting and feeding out in the marsh proper but they were distant and will not factor into this post.

Eggs 145

Eggs New York Wounded Jamaica 145

10,000 Birds

MARCH 20, 2024

There are bird species with the power of personality and feathered friends with super migratory prowess. It’s not that they don’t still occur in Niagara Falls, New York. I live in Costa Rica, a place that makes up for the lack of cardinals with trogons, motmots, and like 900 other bird species.

Costa Rica 243

Costa Rica Birds New York Parrots 243

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 28, 2021

At least that’s where I added this species to my New York list. Corey went for a walk at Jamaica Bay with his family on Saturday evening, after the rain had stopped in New York City and went out again, alone, on Sunday morning before the rain picked back up.

New York City 245

New York City Charlotte New York Jamaica 245

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 11, 2022

One of the rites of passage I underwent as a birder following my move from New York City to upstate New York was my first winter excursion to the rolling, snow-covered grasslands north of Albany to look for Short-eared Owls ( Asio flammeus ).

Owls 204

Owls New York New York City Cuba 204

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 13, 2021

I wonder what he would have made of the extraordinary peregrinations undertaken by this species in 2021, with birds turning up well north of their usual range in an event the American Birding Association has coined – with hashtag – #spoonbillsummer? Still, I was looking for a wine as pink as a spoonbill to celebrate our sighting.

New York 263

New York South Carolina North Carolina Massachusetts 263

10,000 Birds

APRIL 18, 2011

Spotting 57 species of birds in the couple of hours we put in to seeking out birds was never so ho-hum in my life. One final stop at a popular park in Queens netted us another nesting species that we only found because they can’t fly yet, Great Horned Owlets. So-so looks at a brown swallow. How exciting. Of course it did.

New York City 163

New York City New York Walruses Birds 163

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 19, 2012

Red Crossbill cracking open a cone (click to embiggen) Red Crossbills and White-winged Crossbills And, finally, just because I can, here is a male of each North American crossbill species. But, as was predicted , this has been a monster year for winter finches and good old Loxia curvirostra is no exception. …

New York 131

New York Rights Birds Species 131

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 12, 2011

There were three of us that made the trip to the famed Black Dirt region of Orange County, New York yesterday. A cruise down Missionland Road, which, according to other birders, had been the best shorebird habitat on Saturday, netted a host of common shorebird species, a Pectoral Sandpiper , and three flyover American Golden Plovers.

New York 156

New York Bald Eagle New Jersey Cattle 156

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 22, 2021

All the best birds in my corner of New York over the last few months have been shorebirds, which explains why I dragged myself once again to Rochester’s fabled East Spit to bag a rare local Baird’s Sandpiper. Not only did I pick up that little brown job, but I found plenty more species that looked verrrry much like it.

California 264

California New York Birds Experience 264

10,000 Birds

MAY 10, 2021

Of all the species he saw he had one that was easily his Best Bird of the Weekend, as it was a new bird for him in New York State. Happily, the sparrows finally arrived this weekend and have strutted around my feeders enough for me to fully admire their beauty.

New York 255

New York Sparrows Birds Breeding 255