I’ve come to realize that unless your father was Fred Sibley, everytime you open up a field guide there is something there to learn. Too often it seems that people consult their field guides only when a hard identification presents itself in the field, rather than pouring over the text, images, and even maps that […]

Looking out my kitchen window this morning I noticed a single male Purple Finch at the feeders. While not my first Purple Finch of the year at the house this year (had a female several weeks ago), the male was certainly enjoyable to watch.
Just over a year ago high numbers of PUFIs at the house […]

Undeniably, one of my favorite facets about birding is the discovery and observation of a new species. While I am a huge advocate of getting to know and appreciating the common species, the experience of seeing a new bird for the first time is hard to beat. Fortunately, my recent work in California not only allows this East-Coaster to […]

With 2005 drawing to a close, Ryan and I decided there would be no better way to finish our best birding year to date than with a winter pelagic on the Atlantic with See Life Paulagics in late December. While the possibilities for adding new species like Northern Fulmar, Great Skua, Dovekie, Thick-billed Murre, and Atlantic Puffin to our […]

The second half of my birding adventures today came in the form of Owling with my good friend Chris. Chris is not really a birder in most forms of definition. However, he does enjoy birds to a degree that he will often ask about their biology, ecology (he too is a conservation biologist), and identification, […]

Having some extra time today, I decided to head over to the Coxsackie area of Greene County, NY to do a little birding. While I was really hoping to run into a Short-eared Owl or two (which didn’t happen), I did have several nice surprises at the Coxsackie Boat Launch in the form of Larids, and […]

This post has little use as it is out of date but I felt obliged to share some winter bird excitement with you all.
 
Three weeks ago friday on my way home from a meeting in Utica, I sucessfully located a juvenile SNOWY OWL on peterboro road in Madison County thanks to one of Matt Youngs […]

Today while birding, Ryan and I observed two Red-tailed Hawks perched nearly on top of each other on the edge of a small patch of woods bordering a field. Our first comments on the sighting was jokes of “Red-tails in Love” and the comparison to the Harris’s Hawks we observed in the Rio Grande Valley […]

Despite today’s high winds (35mph gusts) and frigid conditions due to a recent arctic air mass that moved over the area the last two days, signs of spring seem to be on the rise, albeit slow and unsteady. Two days ago a lone Turkey Vulture soared above a nearby highway, and today a single Killdeer called out […]