Observations, ideas, and wonderings on birds encountered in the landscape.
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Notes from Spring Migration 2024 – Common Yellowthroats at the Masked Ball
I’ll never forget the first time I saw a Common Yellowthroat. It was several years ago in Central Park during spring migration. I was new to birding and learning the ropes from seasoned birders. I was dazzled by the warblers and couldn’t quite keep up with the sightings. We were along The Loch on Central… Read more
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Cedar Waxwings and a House Finch in the Juneberries of Isham Park
If it’s June, go find a Juneberry shrub or tree (or call it serviceberry or Amelanchier, if you prefer) bearing fruit. Cedar Waxwings may be there as well as other birds. They are all after the berries. A fellow birder asked me the other day if I had seen the Cedar Waxwings in Isham Park,… Read more
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Inwood Hill Nature Center Opens and the Summer Begins
On Saturday, June 1, 2024, Inwood residents and visitors finally got to walk inside the Inwood Hill Nature Center. Shuttered for twelve years following extensive damage from Hurricane Sandy in October of 2012, the renovation of the Art Deco building in Inwood Hill Park (originally designed as a boathouse before it became a nature center)… Read more
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Scaling the Heights with the Black-and-white Warblers
For a bird I’ve seen infrequently, the Black-and-white Warbler has played an oversized role in my personal life over the last decade. When I moved to the Inwood neighborhood of Northern Manhattan in 2014, I wasn’t familiar with the area. I just found it to be wild. I had previously lived in Greenwich Village, and… Read more
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The Sparrows of April
The month of April could be told in sparrows. That rusty-capped little sparrow you may have seen this past month in the local parks, the Chipping Sparrow, is currently traveling north from Mexico and South America, stopping here on its long migration journey. It breeds in late April and May. The Chipping Sparrow trills loudly,… Read more
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Celebrating the Orioles
This is a quick post to acknowledge and celebrate the recent arrival of Baltimore Orioles in Inwood Hill Park. I saw at least four of them on the morning of Friday, April 26, 2024. I first saw one high in a tree on the peninsula. It flew off over the river to the north side.… Read more
Birds of Inwood 