Birding with Baby and Toddler- Take what you can get

If you want to go birding and you have a four month old and a three year old, take what you can get.

Birding with a Threenager

Three going on thirteen, right? Just as I needed to adapt my birding to a newborn, then a toddler, I am now dealing with a whole new animal: the threenager.

The mental leaps she has gone through in the last year are mind-boggling. I used to think of her as the velociraptor in Jurassic Park learning to open the door; now she’s a pretty much a cunning tactician, negotiating, playing emotions, employing every trick she knows and learning new strategies as she goes.

She’s not just getting smarter. Now she remembers things, like how the playground is right over there. She now also has the confidence and leg strength to run off and make it to the playground on her own.

Birding the Southern Zone of Pelham Bay Park

Pelham Bay Park is New York City’s largest city park and an excellent birding destination. Located in the northeast corner of the Bronx, it contains a wide variety of habitats and borders Long Island Sound. Much of the birding attention in Pelham Bay Park goes to Hunter Island, Twin Islands, Turtle Cove, and more recently, the pools of freshwater at the Orchard Beach parking lot. However, there are a ton of other great spots, including the Southern Zone.

Pelham Bay Park's Southern Zone:
a great NYC birding destination

The Southern Zone is actually the most accessible part of Pelham Bay Park’s 2,700+ acres. Multiple buses, including the BX12, and the 6 train allow visitors to exit transit and walk over the street via pedestrian bridge to enter the park. Although the bus to Orchard Beach runs only in the summer, the Southern Zone is accessible by all transit year round.

Birding with a five-day old

Despite having had one kid already, the first few days with a new one I felt like I forgot how to do everything. How do I hold a newborn? How do I get through the night when needing to wake up every few hours? How do I keep this little human alive?

After returning from the hospital and then taking the baby by subway to the first check-up, I felt buoyed by reports of good health for the little one. Naturally, then, I took the baby birding.

Birds by the Sea

Black Skimmers, at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean

We went to the beach on the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens between Arverne By The Sea and Edgemere this past weekend. I hoped to see a few flyby birds while we splashed in the waves. We were happy to find that a big chunk of beach was blocked off for breeding coastal birds. This area allows hundreds of birds of multiple species to nest and raise their young. Birds flew by, fished, and even came in close enough for easy pictures!

Piping Plovers need beaches!

Are all yellow-rumped warblers Yellow-rumped Warblers?

So many yellow-rumped warblers!

A Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle, the common subspecies
in Eastern North America), colloquially called "butterbutts" 

Yes, Yellow-rumped Warblers are abundant migrants during spring migration where I live. However, the "butterbutts," as many call Yellow-rumped Warblers, are not alone in being yellow-rumped.

Butterbutt? Nope, but it does have a yellow rump... read on.

Marvelous May Migrants at NYBG

Prairie Warbler, NYBG, 5/3/2018

It's spring migration! I get to see birds that I have not seen since 2017 and hear their songs, many of which I have not heard live since spring 2017. I have been looking and listening mainly at New York Botanical Garden (NYBG), especially in its forest along the Bronx River. Spring migration won't last long, however, and in just a few weeks, I probably will not see these birds again until at least August. Enjoy them while they are here!

Birding with baby and toddler- Get them involved!

Perspective of a toddler? She snapped this one!

I was sitting on a small bridge on a trail, watching shorebirds in a marsh. She seemed to be enjoying brushing her hands on the wildflowers along the edge and stamping back and forth along the bridge itself. An adult Bald Eagle flew over and I stood up to snap a few quick pics. The bird started to circle. It was probably one of my better chances to get a good photo of an eagle in flight. But I looked down at my daughter, now tugging on my pant leg. She wanted the camera, because it has buttons and a screen, and it is a fun toy. I put the camera down and picked her up instead. I pointed to the eagle, and we watched it as circled directly overhead twice more, then rode a wind to the south. I did not get the photograph, but we shared a moment that has more meaning than megapixels.

Birds of the Five Boroughs

New York City is for the birds.

Literally, this city is full of birds. And birders.

New York has 62 counties. As the table below shows, NYC boroughs (except the Bronx) rank among the top 12 in both species observed and checklists submitted. This is not surprising given the very large population of New York City. There are lots of birders to submit checklists and lots of eyes to spot birds.

Data pulled from eBird on 3/19/2018. All data
will change as time progresses as people observe
new species, submit new checklists, and even submit
old checklists.

The Bronx lags behind. It is not for lack of green space, but mainly seems to be a function of fewer birders at this time. Historically, there have been some famous Bronx birders!

Many people are surprised to learn that people who love birds would find so much nature appreciation in New York City. Whether it be visiting the displays at the American Museum of Natural History, catching spring migration at Central Park, attending a meeting of the many bird-related organizations, or exploring the variety of habitats all around the city, this city is for the birders!

Walking in Audubon’s old neighborhood

John James Audubon and a Cerulean Warbler
(601 West 149th Street, New York, NY 10031)

In John James Audubon’s time of the 1840’s, when he was a New Yorker, he could go directly up to the Hudson River, where there would form “tidal ponds along the river, full of ducks and snipe.” In 1851 (the same year as Audubon’s death), the Hudson River rail line was built along the river; since then Riverside Drive West and the Henry Hudson Parkway have also been built, further separating the land from the water. One can walk along the river from upper Riverside Park to Fort Tryon on the greenway path.

Birding with baby and toddler- adjust your expectations

Be prepared to adjust your expectations about a lot of things when you have a kid. The same is true of birding with one.

You can totally go birding with your young one starting within weeks of birth and through the terrible twos. As it was for me, it may require you to be flexible in expectations of what a birding excursion looks like, what your attention will be spent on, and how you actually go about finding birds.

Birding with Baby and Toddler- Toy Binoculars

Your kid will want your toys. Get used to it.

Those toy binoculars made for kids are only temporary decoys. Our kid knows we don’t use them and wants what we have.

Birding with baby and toddler- wear them!

We don’t use a stroller, although I could see a stroller working in some birding situations. Instead, we use baby carriers. Cloth wraps worked when baby was light and small, and we switched to baby carriers with back support and strong straps as baby grew into toddler.

Wearing our baby allowed us to walk trails that a stroller would struggle with. It also allows hands-free walking for pulling binoculars to our eyes.

Birding with baby and toddler

In 2015, I started my most exciting bird adventure. My wife and I had our own little baby bird. Actually a little human, but you get the idea.

We first took out baby within 2 weeks of her birth. In her first year, she visited city parks, two state parks, and a national wildlife refuge. I am sure people thought we are crazy, but being birders, they already thought such things of us.

Laundry Birding

It’s a maintenance day- “adulting” as it’s come to be called. Instead of walking the trails and scanning the treetops, I am washing shirts, pants, and socks.

It’s laundry time. But that won’t stop me from spotting a few birds. Before each quarter goes in the machine, I scan it for birds.

What did I see today?

Roseate Spoonbill (left) and Anhinga (right)

#birdbx has arrived!

Birders in the Bronx are getting a new resource for sharing birds: the Twitter feed @Birdbronx and #birdbx.

Another birder and I tried tweeting in 2016 and early 2017 with the hasthtag #bronxbird, but it didn't catch on (you can search Twitter with that hashtag- Cackling Goose, Eastern Meadowlark, Cattle Egret were some of the birds we shared). In Manhattan, there is a Twitter account that automatically retweets tweets with #birdcp; the Bronx did not have such a thing. Thus, people could follow the Manhattan account and could see the tweets about birds in Manhattan. For people who bird the Bronx, this was not an option unless searched for the hashtag #bronxbird. There were still plenty of other ways to share news of a good bird sighting (word of mouth if you encounter another birder, posting to the state email listserve, texting/calling a friend, or seeing an eBird checklist). But Twitter is so fast and easy and now this option is available for the Bronx!

Here is how it works: https://bigmanhattanyear.com/bronx.

Here is the Twitter page: https://twitter.com/BirdBronx. "Real-time rare bird observations and birding news for the Bronx. Followed users can issue alerts by tweeting with #birdbx."

Looking forward to finding fun birds and sharing them #birdbx!

Snow Bunting on Governor's Island

Birding is chancy!

Birding is chancy.

When I take a second loop around a trail or make a repeat pass at a spot visited earlier, it amazes me the things that I saw the first time that I did not see the second time (sometimes the second pass is better, and I feel lucky to have repeated my steps).

Birding is just like that. To connect with a bird, you have to be going in a direction that puts you in the path of a bird. Slightly different trajectories could cause the connection to be missed. For all the sightings I do make, there are probably many more that do not happen because a difference of a few feet of distance, a timing off by a few seconds or minutes, or a noise that calls my attention to the left but distracts me from the right. That birding is chancy is not a principle of birding that I stick by, but more a key understanding of how birding, and perhaps life, works.

I have been deepening this understanding since I started looking at birds, and even using that phrase, "birding is chancy," for years. Two recent experiences from the last couple weeks in the Bronx demonstrate the understanding perfectly.

Raptors and Dickcissel near the landfill in Pelham Bay Park

Osprey

I birded the southern zone of Pelham Bay Park in Bronx County, New York, today (October 1, 2017). Near the southwestern edge of the landfill, there is a brushy area between the landfill and Eastchester Bay. A Dickcissel popped up briefly and then landed on the fence that blocks off access to the bay. I was not able find this bird again despite being in the general vicinity for the next 4 hours. I got some poor photos that are on the eBird list linked below.

Dickcissel, out of normal range! Sure, on the Osage Plains of
the Midwest this is a common species, but not in NYC!

Shorebirds of the Bronx

Whimbrels in Turtle Cove, Pelham Bay Park, Bronx

In mid-July a couple Bronx birder friends and I were talking about we have never really had that much luck with shorebirds in the Bronx. There were several species that could be generally found at certain times in certain places, but the Bronx definitely seemed to be the least shorebirdy place in NYC.

That luck would change, due to some serious puddles, but also perhaps some increased attention at the right times.