The "Long" Journey Begins: Birding NYC

My phone buzzes in my side pocket. I slide it out of my pocket and read the glowing screen. Lucas responded back describing his successful day at the OBX. He saw another new four feathery friends just today: Cackling Goose, Great Cormorant, Ash-throated Flycatcher, and Short-eared Owl plus another arctic wanderer, the Snowy Owl(self-found). “Buzz, buzz” he’s already at 320 for this year, demolishing past his goal of 300 he set at the beginning of the year. Reading the text in my seat at Barclay Center, I sit at 254 with a non triumphant day of birding in Central Park. A Long-eared Owl was reported in the park last Sunday, and Iceland gulls are a rarity that show up on the reservoir in the park this time of year, but I left the park with two nemesis birds after circling around Central Park’s ponds and lakes scanning pine trees and the horizon.

 I lean back farther in my seat amongst the thousands of Brooklyn Nets Fans watching Mason Plumlee make a dunk on the Milwaukee bucks, and I start to think of the sentimental memories my first year spent as a birder. I might not of found as much quantity, but man I'll tell ya, I did find a lot of quality. I have definitely been taken “off the beaten path” and look at my surroundings differently. I now see a tree as a tree decorated with living ornaments decorated in a beautiful plumage, all I had to do is look closer. I’ve explored nooks and crannies around my hometown; Raleigh, NC; I never even knew existed. A year ago I would have never thought birding at a Turf Farm and seeing Upland Sandpipers was even possible! There is just this wonderful avian world thats been fluttering above my head all my life. And as I think of all the 30mph winds with rain and 40degree weather that blew in my direction and leaving my house before 5:30 a.m. on Saturdays becoming a normal routine, I realized it was all worth it when you see your target species. I flashback to the Snowy Owl chase at Cape Hatteras, NC and bunkering behind sand dunes against a lightning storm. Sludging through a marsh to see a Nelson’s sharp tailed sparrow at Fort Fisher. And the best part is the adventure never ends! There’s always something to see . . .  I’ve also enjoyed getting to know the other two  birders of the “Bird Nerd Herd” as we have been called by our peers: Sam and Lucas. Now I start to think of how I can squeeze some more birding into the rest of my family vacation in New York City before I return to Raleigh, NC to end my 2013 year of birding. 

Now I just have 4 more days before the adventure starts all over again for my year list, so tomorrow I head out to Prospect Park in Brooklyn to look for an Iceland Gull. Let the birding begin . . .