February birds at Van Cortlandt Park

A male Northern Cardinal splashes red and orange onto the browns of
dormant pants and the white of remaining snow.

SuperB owl Party 2017

I celebrated the biggest game of the year by going birding, attending a SuperB owl walk in Pelham Bay Park, Bronx, NY. The score was three owls- a win for the birders!

Northern Saw-whet Owl

The Museum of Modern Bird Art in New York City

New York City is full of art galleries and museums. While there is no official museum of modern bird art, all you need to do is explore the city's streets, subways, and parks to find diverse portrayals of the feathered kind. No fees required. Well, maybe a subway fare!

Owl statue (with obligatory Rock Pigeon) overlooking Herald Square,
Manhattan

One of many Audubon Mural Project paintings in Washington Heights
(formerly Audubon Park!), Manhattan

Christmas Bird Count in the Bronx

One young Red-tailed Hawk.

For the East Bronx section of Bronx-Westchester Christmas Bird Count (CBC), I birded the southern zone of Pelham Bay Park with a group of five people. We covered about 2.5 miles of distance (not including backtracking) in over five hours. Our goal was to identify and count every single bird to submit as part of a larger citizen science effort to track bird populations and distribution.

Early light at Pelham Bay Park landfill, part of the southern zone of the park.

One of the highlights of covering the southern zone is entering the generally-closed-to-the-public landfill area. With its grassland-like habitat, it always holds promise for interesting birds.

New York City landmarks, just part of the scenery!

Triple helping of Christmas Goose

Snow Goose started off the holiday visual feast on 12/25/2016
at Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx, NY. Canada Goose followed. 

The main delicacy, a Pink-footed Goose, in Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx, NY,
with tons of Canada Goose on the side.

With little time and declining light we did not pick out a Cackling Goose, but one may have been hiding there! 

Not quite home: Nests and Avian Architecture

Woven nests: Village Weavers (Rwanda)

Birds are consumers in their environments beyond food; they use space, plant material, mud, spider silk, mammal hair, rocks, and other materials to construct their nests. In some cases birds construct other structures, like bowers or food stores.

Tufted Titmouse with nesting material (they nest in holes per Cornell University)

According to Avian Architecture, by Peter Goodfellow, the vast majority of birds do not live in their nest, although there are exceptions. The primary function of the nest is to contain eggs for protection and incubation, and then for many species, for raising the young until they can fledge (defined by the book as growing feathers and being able to fly). For many other species, the young are born from the egg with feathers and without a need for parental care. Nests are then often abandoned or perhaps reclaimed the following breeding season.

Cup nest: Chipping Sparrow (Kansas, USA)

My Dead List: Birding the Zombie Apocalypse

When the end hits, I'll be out bird watching.

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Warblers did always crane the neck. This bird in particular, the Cerulean Warbler, makes its living high in the tree canopy, plucking tiny insects from the leaves. They weren't easy to see before it hit and I never had the luck of living that close to them. Now I’m thinking, if I'm going to get ripped apart and eaten anyway, I might as well start working on my dead list.

One of the benefits of tracking down birds is that you are paying attention to the sounds and movements- a twitch in the leaves to my left, a high pitched whistle from the branches above- and this has immediate benefits to staying alive. The downside is when you get a bird in your bins, especially a bird you're seeking, the trade off is alertness for enjoyment. It just take seconds to get bit or scratched and transform your world into a wrenching sickness followed by a fiendish search for human flesh. Sooner or later, I’m going down, but how many birds can I see before that unfortunate moment? That’s why I call it my dead list.