Butterflying

When the birding gets tough and birders go butterflying.

I find IDing butterflies much harder than birds.  And moths next to impossible.  But they are beautiful.

Birding the Appalachian Trail

The Appalachian Trail (AT) is about ¼ mile from my house as the crow flies. I have walked various parts of it, often birding along the way. The interesting thing about birding the AT is that the habitat varies from woodland, to marsh, to wide open fields. People think of the AT [...]

Birding at lunch

I work in a windowless office in the center of the building in Westchester county NY.  There could be a blizzard outside and I would not know.  I try to get out to breathe the air and see the sunlight if at all possible.  Four laps around the parking lot make a mile (or so [...]

Golden-winged Warblers-Yes!

I got out of the car with fingers crossed.  I had brought my house guests to see Golden-winged Warblers.  They had never seen them and the birds are declining.  Looking for Hooded Warblers weeks ago, I happened to have heard the Golden-winged at this spot.   So I knew they were around, but any time you [...]

Willow Flycatcher

Of the 5 look-a-like Empidonax flycatchers, I see Willow the most, or rather I should say I hear it. Well, I do see it but since they all look alike, I depend on their call to identify which one I am looking at. So, I both hear and…oh, never mind, you know what I mean.
On [...]

Beyond the Birds

At this time of year, when the birds are silently going about the business of raising their families, my time in the woods and fields lessens somewhat but when I’m out; it broadens to include other critters not so high in the canopy.
In the woods the other day, I spied a five-lined skink. It warily [...]

Rail Tale

I awoke with trepidation. The temperature was going to soar into the 90s and I had signed up for a marsh field trip at the Sussex County Birding Festival. I considered not going. I had things that needed doing around the house that may or may not have included sitting in front [...]

Birding the Shawangunk Grasslands

Coming from the flatland, I have a longing for wide open spaces, vista, amber waves of grain, bobolink, meadowlark and all the open grassland sparrows. Sometimes I just need to be alone in the vastness of a big sky. So when I got an email about a field trip to the Shawangunk Grassland National Wildlife [...]

Birds and Bugs

I have been bitten or stung by just about every insect in the woods and fields.  As a kid I ran barefoot through the grass stepping on my share of bees, both honey and bumble.  (It is like stepping on a live coal).  We romped in the warm summer evenings until the mosquitoes drove us [...]

Birding a powercut

I parked the car and stepped out to the hiss and singing of the high-tension wires overhead in the powercut. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Until I moved north, I had never considered birding a powercut. Heck, I don’t think I even knew there were birds [...]