Greetings,
Tonight I helped conduct a winter raptor survey in the town of Coxsackie, NY. There were many volunteers (including myself) helping an ongoing DEC study. My area was along Rte 57 and Hamilton Rd. Unfortunately for me, I had a slow site and picked up only one dark-morph Rough-Legged Hawk in an hour and a […]

Greetings,
Tomorrow, I will be assisting New York State DEC and their Winter Raptor Survey in Coxsackie (Greene Co.). In addition to that, I hope to be making a run up to Albany tomorrow morning to look for the Merlin which has been reported at Colonie Center. Aside from both of these (and more?) which I […]

Greetings,
With hours of work on the site today, I’m a little past the point of writing up a good post. However, one of the things that I have been digging lately has been these awesome images of a “Mangrove” Yellow Warbler coming out of California that I want to share with you. You can check […]

Greetings,
Year listing, along with life listing, is an important facet of birding culture. While there are those that do not care to participate, it should be said that at least half, if not the majority of all birders keep lists in one way or another. In fact, here at Chat Happens, we have a whole […]

Greetings,
As it plays out year after year, coast to coast, rare birds or birds of special interest such as owls and hawks are sought after and photographed by a slew of professional and amateur photographers and birders alike. Unfortunately, sometimes it is not without controversy. Just recently, here locally in the Hudson Valley of New […]

Greetings,
Today while scanning the feeders at the house, I noticed 3 PINE SISKINS feeding in the tray along side 3 PURPLE FINCHES. These siskins are the first for me on the year, and the first for me this winter at my feeders. My last detection of siskins occured in mid October at the nearby Churchtown […]

Greetings,
Today with a few hours to kill, my wonderful girlfriend and I made a trip over to Coxsackie in Greene County in search of winter gulls and raptors. As posted earlier, I made the trip on Tuesday with mediocre results. While today was not a complete success with target birds, it was pretty stellar overall, […]

Greetings,
Today while house sitting a friend’s house with my girlfriend, I basically stayed in all day due to the inclement weather of snow, sleet, and freezing rain. This meant my exposure to any and all birds was limited to the feeders present. This however, wasn’t as bad as expected as it yielded a few nice […]

Greetings,
With a little time this afternoon, I decided to go do some birding in nearby Greene County on the west side of the Hudson River. My main goal today was to look for some winter gulls, waterfowl, field birds, and of course raptors. For those not familiar with Greene County, one of the better areas […]

Greetings,
Last night while talking all things bird over dinner with Ryan, one of the topics that came up was feeder birds and in particular winter finches. In the past I have had great fortune with winter finches in my yard including Pine Grosbeak, Evening Grosbeak, Pine Siskin, Purple Finch, Common Redpoll, and Hoary Redpoll. Unfortunately, […]