Bird Club 1234567

Something wicked this way comes

Creeping through the verdant circus,

Every nerve and tendon hums

With a sense of fatal purpose.

Now the jewel-feathered dart

Wings an arc 'twixt earth and heaven

Count the flutters of your heart

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

Recent Updates

• 2/27/26: Added 2/14 recap.
• 1/24/26: We're back! Added 1/17 recap + updated life list.

About Us

A Brief History

• May 2022 - Sayed establishes Bird Club 1234567 in New York City.
• July 2022 - the "Robert Incident": during a bird walk in Inwood Hill Park, Robert makes a highly unappetizing allusion to the "Warriors" series of young adult fantasy novels.
• September 2022 - a turtle of Brobdingnagian proportions astonishes attendees of a bird walk in Prospect Park.
• February 2023 - the "Robert Scandal": in Central Park, confusion reigns supreme as Robert misidentifies a shocking number of different birds as robins.
• March 2023 - club morale sinks to "Robert Incident"-era lows after Sayed fails, multiple times over, to produce a timberdoodle in Bryant Park.
• April 2023 - the outrageous "Bittern Scandal": "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a marsh bird stirs up anger."
• September 2023 - the "Robert Imbroglio": a minor fracas breaks out in Prospect Park after Robert makes an incendiary reference to the "Harry Potter" series of fantasy novels.
• January 2024 - Bird Club 1234567 is reduced to a smoldering heap of ashes.
• November 2025 - Bird Club 1234567 returns!

Rules

1. Dress for the Bird Club you want, not the Bird Club you have.
2. Cheap thrills breed expensive regrets—and our Bird Club is as cheap as it gets (free).
3. Remember that we are but the littlest of baby birds, hopelessly ensconced in the myriad branches of the grand old tree that is Life.
4. Sayed does not know what kind of gull that is.
5. Sayed will either arrive perfectly on time, or 30 minutes late with a delicious excuse.
6. In a modern condition increasingly wracked with nerve-shattering uncertainty and clouded by an impenetrable fog of bad faith, it is considered permissible on our walks to "round" indeterminate Gray-cheeked/Bicknell's Thrush to Gray-cheeked, even if aural confirmation is lacking.
7. Expect nothing, and you will never be disappointed.

take me back

Bird Club 1234567: A Sordid History

The whole sorry story of a Bird Club that should've known better, but didn't.

When present, click on this emoji to view a map.

Select a year: 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2026

2022

May 29 – Central Park (Ramble)

[9:00 AM] (list) First, Sayed forgot how to instruct people in the usage of binoculars. Sorry everyone. Then, our famed “Bird Guru” Ben radioed in to share some painfully profound bird wisdom. The truth hurts! Once the agony subsided, we headed into the Ramble to do some birding. Sightings included a beleaguered red-tailed hawk, a couple of different kinds of woodpeckers, and a close look at a double-crested cormorant in the Lake, which dove out of sight. Robert proclaimed that the cormorant had probably drowned, which is the kind of comment that is going to keep him off the Bird Club executive track for a long while. Also, we saw a frankly upsetting number of turtles clustered together on a tiny stretch of the lakefront. The walk ended on a frightening note as we walked within honking distance of a group of Canada geese and goslings. (Geese are jerks.)

June 4 – Central Park (Ramble/Lake)

[7:00 AM] (list) We started the morning in the Ramble, where bajillions of speckly young robins were learning how to peck at the ground for worms. An early highlight was a blue jay doing the squeaky gate call. We also had a spring migrant, a yellow-rumped warbler. Apparently this is a very late record—the last such warblers would have been expected to have passed through a week or two ago. So my eBird checklist is currently being scrutinized by a nice volunteer named Adrian, who has told me I can either provide more details regarding the sighting, or rot in birder jail. Anyway, the Ramble was a bit slow overall so we scoured the Lake for a while. At Bow Bridge we were rewarded with a couple of cool flyovers: a chimney swift and a black-crowned night heron! The walk ended by the maintenance yard behind Delacorte Theater, with our trusty "Bird Guru" Ben being patched in to contribute more of his hard-to-swallow nuggets of wisdom. One especially long and indigestible mental morsel was interrupted by the appearance in the maintenance yard of a pudgy raccoon, which held eye contact for a discomfitingly long time before deciding that Ben's anecdote was not worth the wait and clambering over the fence into the woods.

June 19 – Prospect Park

[7:00 AM] (list) Sayed was kind of sleepwalking through this one, but he will try to dredge up a recollection or two. A brilliant male Baltimore oriole, then a second, then a third. Robert thinks Sayed is joking when he says the actual species name is "Baltimore oriole." To be fair, Sayed and a schoolmate, Ryan, once convinced Robert that Professor Normoyle was going to be replaced next semester by somebody named Brunceo Dronx, using only a fake "resume" as proof. The "resume" was a hastily prepared Word document on Ryan's laptop that contained about three lines of left-justified text and a screenshot of the Shockmaster. Ryan and Sayed were sure the jig was up when Robert googled "Brunceo Dronx" and nothing came up, but Robert just said, "Whoa! He's a Google ghost!" Ha ha! Anyway. A weeny mourning dove fledgling, sat atop the lid of a grill. Turtles that flee upon approach. A gang of geese and a gang of swans a few yards apart. A peaceful moment by the water, interrupted briefly by a biker blasting "Friday I'm In Love" while taking a lakefront selfie. Chimney swifts flutter low overhead. That robin sure looks out of it. Say what? I have to run another bird walk?

[9:00 AM] (list) After the 7am walk concluded, Rom, who is evidently a glutton for punishment, decided to stick around for the 9am. We had a nice big group here, and fittingly kicked things off with a nice big bird, namely a great egret, which was in the midst of harassment from a grackle. (Egrets mostly eat fish, but are probably opportunistic enough to go for a nestling.) Most of the action took place around a patch of white mulberry trees. All sorts of neat birds were in or around the trees, including another male oriole, downy and red-bellied woodpeckers, a cedar waxwing, and a green heron! At least one bird clubber got at least slightly pooped on. We ventured out to the tip of the Peninsula, where the highlight was a family of four swans. The cygnets looked way too self-satisfied for creatures that had been living in eggs a month ago. At least one bird clubber voiced his preference for Central Park, largely on account of the more abundant and less cowardly turtles, after which at least almost everybody else responded by beating him with sticks. Upon the conclusion of the walk, we winced in anticipation of impactful bird wisdom from our Bird Guru, Ben, but thankfully he was chewing and we couldn't really make out what he was saying. As nice as the birds were, the most memorable sighting of the day was probably Bill de Blasio at a street fair afterwards.

July 23 – Inwood Hill Park

[7:00 AM] (list) After nodding sagely at the rabies warning posted at the entrance to Inwood Hill Park, we tromped on into the woods. The maze-like trail network forked very frequently, but we kept our bearings by heeding the "right-hand rule," which states that you will eventually reach the exit if you keep right, then left, then right, then left, then left, then right, then left, then right, then right, then right, then left, then right, then right, then left, then right, then left, then left, then right and then left. Anyway, about halfway through that, we found ourselves deep in dark, primordial forest, surrounded on all sides by haunting wood thrush song. It was a magical, otherworldly experience. At least it was until Robert shared that in those Warriors cat books, the ones about those cats that live together in the woods, the cats frequently brought back dead thrushes to put on the communal food pile. Robert followed up this smashing anecdote by reminding us that "thrush" is also the term for a fungal infection you get on your tongue. After we had all come to terms with the staggering repugnance of these contributions, we continued our traversal of the forest, stopping here and there to flip logs, under which we were pleased to find all manner of worms and wormfolk. Eventually we reached the open air and the body of water separating Manhattan and the Bronx. Here we briefly glimpsed a spotted sandpiper, but Sayed was the only one lucky enough to see a bit of its trademark twerk. Finally, our highly famed Bird Guru, Ben, radioed in and battered us with a high-impact helping of his bird wisdom. Ow! Oof! Ouch! Then we went to a crappy diner.

July 31 – Prospect Park

[7:00 AM] (list) The morning started promisingly with Sayed learning about the fickle weekend behavior of the F train. We began the walk at the Wellhouse, enjoying brief but clear looks at a demure cedar waxwing until a gentle breeze carried the famous Wellhouse smell over to where we stood. As we made our way out to the Peninsula, a soaking wet dog implored us to throw its ball, by way of dropping it at our feet and gazing wistfully into the distance, but we haughtily refused to so much as make eye contact with the extremely soggy creature. Out at the tip of the Peninsula we sighted a great egret and osprey perched in adjacent trees, which somewhat made up for the predictable, but still-irritating, lack of turtles. After we returned to the main road, the walk ended on a high note when we found a few yellow warblers, little droplets of gold, zipping about the low-hanging branches of a tree by the lake.

[9:00 AM] (list) This walk was attended by two of the most experienced members of the club, which meant we operated on something of a "higher level." What this means is, we indexed heavily into staring at silent, empty trees, smiling knowingly, commenting to each other about how this tree looked like it had to have a good bird in it somewhere. While we weren't busy doing that, we did see some nice birds. The osprey from the 7am walk had taken to the air, the egret had taken to somewhere else, and the turtle consternation was in exactly the same place. (Okay, we did see a couple of turtles.) We spent a kind of long time committing heinous, park-sanctioned acts on a spotted lanternfly that simply refused to go down. Sorry, little guy. After leaving the Peninsula, we tried a new trail, upon which we endured much neck pain for half-glimpses of a female redstart high above us.

Sep 4 – Prospect Park

[9:00 AM] (list) At this point, the details of this walk are secret, hidden, lost like footprints on the sands of time. But I do remember that we sighted an ENORMOUS common snapping turtle in the Prospect Park stream, and I forced my unlucky attendees to crotch themselves going over a fence in order to get a better look, since I'd never seen a wild snapping turtle before. In fact, I have photographs of this turtle, but I won't be sharing them because they are so poor as to detract from the believability of my story. Instead, I present to you this great link about Prospect Park's enormous snapping turtles, which contains a quote I really like: "Plenty of people say they saw a huge turtle - and almost universally describe her as 'big as a garbage can lid.'" Attendees of this walk will recall that these were the very words I uttered upon seeing the giant turtle ("Look at that turtle, which is as big as a garbage can lid!"), so this checks out. Also, if you look at the top left of the webpage, you will see a link to another post entitled, "Green heron nest survived Googa Mooga." I haven't read it yet, but judging by the title, I think it's extremely promising.

take me back

2023

Jan 28 – Prospect Park

[8:00 AM] (list) Sayed was 20 minutes late because the Q was running hyperlocal (making local stops as well as stopping randomly in the middle of the tunnel) south of Canal St. Upon arrival, he was severely reprimanded by a pack of irate Bird Clubbers. "We don't want to hear your excuses," they hissed. "Just hand over the binoculars and tell us what the birds are." First, we looked for cute duckies on the Lake. Sayed insisted that everybody try to get a good look at the feet of a coot, which made everyone uncomfortable, including the coot. Earlier in the week, Robert had offhandedly pretended to want to see a bufflehead, which is a sea duck that is pretty out of place on fresh water, but for some reason, a lone bufflehead has been hanging out at the Upper Pool in the park for the past few weeks, and for some reason, Sayed knew about it, so we made our way north while chanting the "Bufflehead Song" ("BUF-FLE-HEAD!! BUF-FLE-HEAD!!"). En route, Willa used her binoculars to get a better look at a dog doing its business. Whoops of surprise and gladness were issued by all upon spotting the much-anticipated bufflehead, which had all the open water of the Upper Pool to itself. We spent a while watching the regal little duck dive for snacks before calling it a morning.

Feb 20 – Central Park (Ramble / Lake / Sheep Meadow)

[10:00 AM] (list) Sayed lured a number of Bird Clubbers to this walk with the promise of seeing that owl everyone has been talking about, but upon arrival he shared that the owl had not been sighted in the park for the past 36 hours. Sike!!! Robert, wanting to impress the Bird Clubbers visiting from out of town, proclaimed he would shoulder the burden of identifying any robins we came across. Luckily for Robert, 100% of the birds we encountered were not robins. An early highlight was a pair of red-tailed hawks hanging out by the Ramble bird feeders and getting harassed by squirrels. We ran into a gruff New Yorker who told us where to find a great blue heron on the Lake and articulately expressed his comparative disinterest in both the owl and the red-tailed hawks ("They're EVERYWEAH this year! I got it up to HEAYUH in red-tailed hawks!"). At the designated spot we did see the heron, as well as a female hooded merganser diving for snacks and a shoveler looking comically disproportionate in flight. We ambled down to Sheep Meadow, where Sayed uttered the magical words which are sweet music to every birder's ear: "Now, we are going to look through a big flock of small brown birds for a slightly different-looking small brown bird." We sifted through an endless horde of ground-foraging juncos and white-throated sparrows for a juvenile white-crowned sparrow, a rare species in our region, that has been spending the winter with said flock. Sayed remarked encouragingly that for all we knew, our target could just be chilling up in a tree, out of sight. A man pushing a stroller asked if we were looking for the owl. "No, we're looking for a sparrow." "Oh.... Good luck," he said, disentangling himself from the situation as quickly as possible. Suddenly, but four or five feet away from us, there it was! We were delighted to see that the little sparrow, with its slim profile, smooth coloration, and peaked crown, did indeed look different from all the other small brown birds. Though we spent barely a minute with the sparrow before it darted off, we felt moved to physical applause at having ended our walk on a high note. After lunch, Sayed checked bird Twitter again and learned that the owl had just been re-found well north of 100th Street. So typical.

Feb 26 – Coney Island

[11:00 AM] (list) A record crowd of nine Bird Clubbers gathered at the corner of the original Nathan's Famous. The highlight of the gathering process was Eli's badass entrance, which involved a car. Also on our block were two big dudes, wearing awesome Giants jackets, cranking Billy Idol from a little red stereo on the sidewalk, while leaning against the dumbest-looking souped-up 5th gen Mustangs you ever saw. At the beach, in spite of suboptimal visibility and choppy waters, we immediately picked out some cool birds: a small flock of brant, inspiring Sayed to share some of his famous "Brant Rant;" several common loons diving for snacks; and a few purple sandpipers, the trademark bird of East Coast rock jetties. Sayed tried to explain the intricacies of identifying an adult great black-backed gull (1. great size; 2. black back), but his lips were frozen, so the words came out like "Mmmgmm mm gmmm mmm." Irene said the gull had a big booty, which is as good a method of ID'ing gulls as any, if you ask me. On the pier, we were rewarded with a couple different kinds of winter sea ducks: a lone surf scoter (awful views) and two pairs of fabulously elegant long-tailed ducks (decent views), one on each side of the pier. Sayed asserted that the birds in the big flock way out on the horizon were gannets, wacky gull-like relatives of the pelicans. The Bird Clubbers politely took his word for it. As we departed the pier, we noticed that the long-tailed ducks were now on a double date!

Mar 16, 18 – Bryant Park (Timberdoodle Quests)

[4:00 PM] (list 1) (list 2) We didn't see any timberdoodles. However, on Thursday, we did run into this lady who was on the phone and also looking for woodcocks. She asked us if we had found one yet, and we said no, and she said she had checked the whole park and just couldn't find one. And then to the befuddled person on the line, she said, "Naw, ignore all of that, I'm lookin' for something." That was great. Also, on Saturday, Robert. ignoring very obvious signage, trespassed directly in front of a Parks Department employee. For a brief moment, it seemed like he had gotten into serious trouble, but unfortunately nothing came of it. Also, we saw catbirds on both days, our first spring migrants of 2023. Also, on Thursday we saw a Swainson's thrush that has spent its winter in the park, and on Saturday we had three kinds of sparrows. Sayed explained that the sexes of white-throated sparrows are like Teletubbies, in that there are four different ones. (Assuming you don't include the Sun Baby. Most people, if you asked them, would probably not consider the Sun Baby to count as a Teletubby. Personally, I think the Sun Baby basically counts. My theory is that there used to be five Teletubbies, and then the four canonical ones conspired to launch the fifth one into the Sun, inadvertently birthing the Sun Baby! I mean, does anyone else have a better idea, regarding the Sun Baby? If so, I'd love to hear it.)

Apr 2 – Green-Wood Cemetery

[8:30 AM] (list) Sayed, engaged in a futile battle of wills with the weekend morning N train, smiled knowingly; all of the other Bird Clubbers planning to attend were certain to be even more egregiously late. As Bird Clubbers gradually filtered in, we watched monk parakeets squabble in their big nest on the cemetery gatehouse. A couple hours' aimless roaming produced many golden-crowned kinglets, famously boingy birds, whose boingy disposition infuriated any Bird Clubber hoping to get a look at one through binoculars. Boing! We did have great looks at a couple of pine warblers and brown creepers, and observed a red-tailed hawk breaking off a big twig for its nest. Since we were in a cemetery, we paused to pay our respects by leaving virtual flowers on somebody's grave on Findagrave.com. (We chose yellow flowers because we had seen some birds with yellow plumage.) A dapper male yellow-bellied sapsucker flushed from a shrubby tree—closer inspection of which revealed an array of the woodpecker's trademark sap wells (TRYPOPHOBIA WARNING!!!). Over the course of the walk, Robert found many occasions to employ his staggeringly inaccurate robin identification algorithm. For example: "That's a robin!" ("No.") "Oh... is it a leaf?" ("No.") "It's... it's a robin!" ("No. It's a phoebe.") "Oh." Boing! As we prepared to wrap up by Crescent Water, a nice man said to us, "I just wanted to check whether you've seen the American bittern?" Right by the water, under a canopy of cherry blossoms, was a singularly yam-shaped bird. It angled its neck skyward and stood stock-still, calling upon the sole ability its species had been blessed with, the product of millions of years of evolutionary min-maxing: blending seamlessly into a bed of brown reeds. Except the brown reeds were all in the next pond over. The poor bittern could not have been more comically obvious. Equally dumbfounded, we spent a good fifteen minutes staring at the immobile bird before adjourning.

Apr 8 – Inwood Hill Park

[9:00 AM] (list) (photos) We trotted into the park on what had better end up being the final frigid (below 60°) day of the spring. Soon after entering, we were startled by a very loud sound: THWOCKTHWOCKTHWOCKTHWOCKTHWOCK! Surely, we agreed, such forceful THWOCKs could only be produced by a truly immense woodpecker. But it turned out to be a tiny downy woodpecker that had found a very resonant piece of wood. Another downy woodpecker landed on the underside of the same branch, and apparently berated the THWOCKer, for there was no THWOCKing to be heard thereafter. Two pairs of brown-headed cowbirds were observed twittering away in the trees above the big waterfront field. Rom thought these birds were simply fab, until she learned that they are brood parasites, after which her enthusiasm was rather more muted. Hoping for a Hooty Encounter, we checked the resident screech-owl's favorite haunt, but found nothing but a photographer munching on trail mix while waiting for the owl to show. We climbed to the top of the ridge, where we were rewarded with great views of a singing Carolina wren, as well as renewed Hooty hopes, inspired by a birder who gave us directions to the local barred owl's usual stand of pines. Sadly, we had no luck with this Hooty either—but we did come across a nice brown creeper and a perky little palm warbler, our second warbler of the spring.

Apr 22 – Prospect Park

[8:00 AM] (list) Sayed saw a chipping sparrow—a bird we haven't seen yet as a club—on the way to the bathroom. When he came back out, the sparrow was gone, and we were unable to find one for the rest of the day! Oh no! Regardless, we had a nice start on the Lake with laughing gulls, a double-crested cormorant (the "drowning bird"), and the swiftly receding butt end of a belted kingfisher in flight. Along the shore of the Peninsula, we encountered a little float of ruddy ducks, a pair of fabulous male wood ducks, and our first TURTLEZ!!! of the year. We curved back inland, where SOMEbody said, "this looks like a place where Pikachu would live," causing the disposition of the other Bird Clubbers to worsen significantly. Thankfully, a little troupe of songbirds—yellow-rumped and palm warblers, and a ruby-crowned kinglet—arrived overhead to lift our spirits and stress our necks. Back by the Wellhouse bathrooms, we were blessed by the appearance of an impressive hairy woodpecker, a first for the club, reframing these bathrooms as a locus of happy discovery, rather than one of sparrow-inspired sadness.

[10:00 AM] (list) Due to a variety of interesting circumstances, this was one of the speediest bird walks ever! We zipped about at lightning speed, stopping only to blow our noses and, occasionally, look at a bird. We had a series of glimpses of about 20% of a female towhee—a big, long-tailed sparrow that likes to skulk around in the undergrowth and frustrate onlookers. On our way out of the park, a blue jay arrested our speedy movement by unleashing its red-tailed hawk impersonation!

Apr 27 – Bryant Park (Timberdoodle Quest)

[6:00 PM] (list) Braving poor odds and legions of Midtown clock-outs, we ventured into Bryant Park and began a long evening of squinting under bushes for feathery brown lumps. Our investigation quickly produced a dopey hermit thrush, as well as several white-throated sparrows, the famous bird of four sexes, but no woodcock was immediately forthcoming. In the southwest corner of the park, we had a series of glimpses of about 20% of a female towhee. Sayed checked his phone and saw that a timberdoodle had been reported in the park about an hour prior, getting everybody's hopes up again. Still, no amount of squinting and double-checking produced our quarry. As the light began to fade, we circled back to Fifth Ave and checked the final stretch of bushes along the front of the library, finding them entirely devoid of birds. Resigned to another humiliation at the hands of the timberdoodle, Sayed checked eBird once more. This time, he found an even more recent report with directions: "Sleeping in tulips in front of Library." The tulips directly in front of the bushes we had just checked! Our hopes roused once more, we crab-walked back down Fifth Ave, squinting with fearsome intent into the tulips. But again, no timberdoodle materialized. Had it moved into the park proper? Sayed pulled up a photo from the latest report. His eyes moved from phone to tulips and landed immediately on the dozing woodcock! Evidently the photo had been taken from the exact same spot. We stared, mouths agape, for quite a long while—long enough for the woodcock to wake up, totter about in pursuit of a couple of earthworms, and fall asleep again.

May 14 – Randall's Island

[9:00 AM] (list) We found Randall's Island to be an altogether rather pleasant place, though there were altogether too many bikers zipping past at high rates of speed, and altogether too few turtles (zero). Rom, inspired by the bikers, shared tales of her heroic roller-blading exploits, which she promised to reenact on a future Bird Club trip. We were pleased to encounter several new birds with charming one-word names: gadwall (a duck), ovenbird (a weird warbler that looks like a thrush), and veery (a thrush). Gadwall Ovenbird & Veery (GOB) sounds like it could be the name of a law firm in a British sitcom! Well, it kind of does, but it's probably not quite silly enough. They would probably pick something even sillier. I mean, in Britain, you could assume a name like Engelbert Humperdinck and become an instant chart sensation in real life, so there is clearly an outsize capacity for that sort of thing. Anyway, we also saw some nice birds with more reasonable names, such as yellow warbler (a warbler that is yellow) and northern waterthrush (never mind, this one is also a weird warbler that looks like a thrush). The walk ended on a weird note as we found a dead squid on the East River walk upon returning via footbridge to Manhattan.

June 3 – Central Park (Ramble/Lake)

[6:00 PM] (list) The walk began thrillingly with a thrilling search for a park bathroom. Among our first bird sightings was a big flock of murderously cute cedar waxwings, which were munching on berries by the maintenance field. Yum! We spent a while admiring the oriole nest above the field, precariously hanging from the outer branches of a planetree. Sayed was concerned that the nest would get flung about wildly by gusts of wind, but another birder assured us that a nearby oriole nest site had weathered Hurricane "Sandy," which is a big, windy thing from a while ago. In the Ramble, we came upon a lone mallard bathing in the Gill. Its chest looked puffed out, so Rom suggested it might have a thyroid condition. Rom further elucidated that many of New York's pigeons have a thyroid condition, brought on by eating excessive amounts of halal food. Yum! Although this disease-ridden discussion threatened to send the emotional trajectory of our bird walk into an irreversible downward spiral, an exciting encounter with a black-crowned night-heron by the Lake ensured the excursion ended on a high note.

July 1 – Prospect Park

[9:00 AM] (list) As is Bird Club Prospect Park tradition, we began our walk at the renowned Wellhouse composting toilets. Only a couple of geese and swans were present on the Lake; presumably the rest of them were off beating up kids in Park Slope and taking their lunch money. Out on the Peninsula, we had a pleasant time listening to the jazzy scatting of a warbling vireo and the ringing song of male red-winged blackbirds, at least until SOMEbody declared that the latter call sounded like Pidgey's cry. You see what I have to put up with, leading these walks? Things sped up bird-wise where the path opens onto a stretch of the Lullwater bordering the north side of the Peninsula. In a span of twenty minutes or so, all sorts of goodies showed up: a soon-to-be-dapper juvenile male wood duck; an extraordinarily dapper great blue heron; an eastern kingbird harassing another great blue heron; a green heron in bouncy, befuddled flight; and a female orchard oriole carrying a large round thingy of some sort in its beak, as birds are wont to do. The walk ended on an ominous note as the high, thin whistling of unseen cedar waxwings bade us a spooky farewell from all sides.

Sep 2 – Prospect Park

[10:00 AM] (list) () What began as a tremulous two-Clubber outing gradually morphed into an unstoppable ten-Clubber juggernaut, thundering across the Peninsula and leaving Tai Chi classes and jogging clubs scattered in its wake! The bird sightings also seemed to trend upwards over the course of the walk. For a time our most exciting avian find was a giant black-and-yellow spider dangling from a tree, which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be a discarded fishing lure hanging from some tangled-up line. Things warmed up as we entered the woods, where a downy woodpecker pair were kind of just sitting there and yelling at each other. Marital bliss! Deeper in the woods we ran into some migrants, including several redstarts, a black-and-white warbler, and a veery. At the Lullwater outlook, we mostly ignored the spotted sandpiper that was flying around, and instead delighted in the sight of a teeny tiny turtle clambering over, under, and around the flowering water-lilies. Exiting the woods, we came across a couple of old wooden brooms propped against a tree. "These look like Cleansweep 7s," said Robert, drawing the ire of the rest of the ten-Clubber juggernaut. We looped back to the Lake side to show the newcomers the spider lure, but this time a different callout stole the spotlight — soaring high over the water was an adult bald eagle, a first for our club!

Sep 15 – Prospect Park (Nethermead – Nighthawk Watch)

[5:30 PM] (list) A crisp, sunny afternoon; a tablecloth spread on a grassy knoll; a pack of Bird Clubbers nibbling on crackers—it was all terribly Victorian. Instead of actively seeking out the birds, we sat back and waited to see what would cross our little patch of sky. The first few flybys were hawk hawks rather than nighthawks, but it didn't take too long for the first bullbat to show up, careening northwest in comically jerky flight. Our five nighthawks—spotted over the course of about forty-five minutes—were mostly a ways away, but one individual tumbled directly overhead, offering a clear view of its peculiar shape and white wing bars. The nighthawk sightings gradually trailed off, but the skies were evidently still bug-laden, as more and more chimney swifts took to quivering flight above us. We indulged in a little bit of bird trivia, but the pedagogical diversion was interrupted dramatically by a late flight of robins, rendered fiery orange by the setting sun. As we packed up, the fading sky produced one final treat: an osprey skimming the treeline, soon to settle in for the evening.

Oct 22 – Central Park (Flaco / Harlem Meer)

[4:00 PM] (list) () Finding Flaco, the famous Central Park owl, turned out to be a pretty straightforward affair. We walked up East Drive until we hit a clump of twenty or thirty admirers, most of whom were situated in the middle of the road, and followed their gaze to a big, brown almond of a bird in the outer branches of a roadside oak tree. Some of the admirers were grizzled Flaco veterans, who would say things like, "Oh, he's sitting on THAT branch today. That's unusual." But most were runners and cyclists who came upon the big clump and, like drivers passing a pileup on the freeway, stopped to see what all the hullabaloo was about. Every minute or so, a pack of bikers would stop, and one of the vets would dash out and yell at them to move out of the bike lane, and mutter as he walked back to the margin that enough was enough, he wasn't going to warn them again, seeing as really, it wasn't any of his business if they wanted to be run over, if they want to die then so be it, and then another group of bikers would stop and he would leap out and do the whole schtick again. It was a real bucket of laughs! Anyway, our long-awaited rendezvous with Flaco, for whom we searched unsuccessfully in February, was highly agreeable. There is a special pleasantness in any encounter with a very comfortable-looking bird, and this was no different. We watched for half an hour or so as he looked around, yawned, squinted, gnawed at one of his talons, and gazed impassively at the flock of crows that first circled, then landed in his oak, cawing at him with much indignation throughout. After we'd had our fill of Flaco, we headed north to take in a bit more of the territory. The strong winds seemed to be keeping most of the birds down—but atop the Fort Clinton overlook, we crossed paths with a tiny ruby-crowned kinglet, foraging acrobatically just a couple of arm lengths away.

Oct 28 – Green-Wood Cemetery

[10:00 AM] (list) () As we have come to expect at Green-Wood, there were birds right off the bat; the gatehouse's giant monk parakeet nest was a frenzy of activity. Little flocks flew into and out of the mass of sticks, and the parakeets perched on the nest structure emitted a near-constant stream of screeches. As it turned out, they weren't the only birds atop the gatehouse—Eli spotted a gorgeous male kestrel sitting placidly on the eastmost spire, perhaps contributing to the parakeets' hysteria. On the hill north of the chapel, we encountered a big metal head making a kissy face. We thought it might be someone's awesome tombstone, but it was just an art installation. A little past the sculpture, we came upon a thrush, perching silently in the bare lower branches of a pine tree. For some reason, Sayed kept calling it a Swainson's thrush, even though it was clearly a hermit thrush. Naturally it was just some sort of strange slip—though if Sayed weren't so eminently competent, one might accuse him of not knowing the difference and only realizing that Swainson's thrushes are long gone upon compiling the bird list. Past the Magnolia Avenue wildflower meadow, we saw a phoebe sitting on a headstone, which determined our Findagrave.com contribution for the day. We then had a spell of relative birdlessness, but an oddly duck-like double-crested cormorant tided us over until we hit a flurry of songbird activity on a ridge above Sylvan Water. Juncos, a swamp sparrow, and both species of kinglet all made appearances, and we heard the nasal honking of a far-off fish crow. Our attempt to track a lone chipping sparrow as it moused around in the grass below us were foiled when a stray movement spooked it into flight—along with a dozen or so previously hidden conspecifics! We exited the cemetery on 35th St and split off to enjoy the rest of the unseasonably warm Halloween Saturday.

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2024

Jan 14 – Coney Island

[11:00 AM] (list) An assorted crew of fresh faces and grizzled veterans of last year's Coney Island trip gathered variously on the corner of Nathan's Famous and inside the kitty-corner Dunkin'. We set out for the beach under very fair weather conditions, which we swiftly succeeded in thoroughly jinxing ("The weather was so much worse last year!"). On our way to the pier we ticked off a few varieties of gull, including what we initially hoped might be a third-year lesser black-backed gull, but agreed was probably a fourth-year great black-backed gull, because it was big as hell. By the time we reached the pier, clouds had rolled in and the wind gusted ferociously, rendering fingers very chilly and faraway birds very unidentifiable, but nobody complained except Sayed. Just off the very end of the pier, a female red-breasted merganser provided the biggest pop of color we had all day, simply by way of having a brown head. Its serrated bill (for catching fish) prompted the sharing of the morning's big bird fact: birds don't have teeth. Some great stuff does come up if you search for "birds with teeth" on Google Images! We got off the pier and trudged eastward along the beach, turning up more goodies on the rock jetties: a few well-camouflaged purple sandpipers and a lone sanderling that had some kind of weird beef with Jimmy. A passing birder helpfully clued us in on the (sadly unrealized) possibilities of scoters and a rare Iceland gull, and in return we informed him it sure was windy on the pier, or something. After completing our jetty inspection, we hopped back onto the delightfully dreary boardwalk to debrief. Eventually, all of the binoculars were stuffed into the Bird Club binocular sack and everyone was allowed to leave! As we split off on Surf Ave, the first flakes of a little flurry began to fall.

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2026

Jan 17 – Coney Island

[10:00 AM] (list 1) (list 2) () Out on the lonesome pier, jutting forth from the all-but-abandoned boardwalk at Coney Island, Bird Club 1234567 staged an outrageous comeback! Fittingly, a total of seven Bird Clubbers braved the inhospitable weather conditions to officially reanimate the long-dead Bird Club. Bird Clubbers who arrived early to the revelry (i.e. less than 20 minutes past the scheduled meeting time) were briefly pelted with hail for their trouble. Sophie and David, recently-ish back from New Zealand, shared some gruesome recordings of the blood-curdling nighttime screams of the little blue penguin. We had good views of a suave-looking male red-breasted merganser, and picked through the surprisingly dense agglomerations of black scoters for a couple of surf scoters. Eventually, some of the Bird Clubbers got bored of loitering on the pier and moseyed on over to a nearby groin, where some great black-backed gulls were dozing. Upon regrouping, all present agreed that it was stupid cold and we ought to hide in the Dunkin' Donuts by the train station for a bit. During this recess, we made sure to look out the window and enjoy some of the ostentatious signage typical of this festive neighborhood. Snow had begun to fall by the time we were ready to set back out again, but Sayed still insisted on dragging everybody 10 blocks west to a desolate lot in a garage-ridden part of town, from which we could observe the wreck of the good submarine Quester I in Coney Island Creek. Sayed was kind of zoning out at this point, but Rom rallied late with a furious display of scaup-identifying prowess to bring our Bird Club life list to 99 species.

Feb 14 – Central Park (Flying Squirrel Quest)

[5:30 PM] Considering all the perfectly apposite and swoonworthy diversions a romantically-minded Bird Club could conceivably partake in on a Valentine's Day evening, this Bird Club's election—to venture deep into the darkest innards of Central Park, in freezing conditions, on the trail of a rumored rodent—may warrant reproach. Still, in Sayed's defense: it had snowed. A week had since passed, and a few rocky outcrops, re-exposed by the receding powder, gleamed like umbral pools in the twilit Ramble. But the cold weather had mostly held, and even under a nearly-new moon the woods were well-illuminated by a carpet of white. “Maybe we'll see Hedwig,” Robert offered hopefully. “Actually, Hedwig would probably blend in,” Robert demurred. There was hardly a wind to speak of, and it seemed like nothing could break the stillness in Tupelo Field. Up on the ramparts of Belvedere Castle, Robert was moved to declaim on some of the finer points of the Redwall series of books for Rom's supposed benefit. The Great Lawn, so rarely devoid of activity, had acquired a gentle, numinous quality in its barrenness. Robert and Rom agreed that the Delacorte Theater looked like a Starbucks Reserve Roastery. Twice we walked a loop from the flying squirrels' favorite tree, to no avail. Some trick of the light impelled us to stop and squint into nothingness for quite a while; by the time we lowered our gaze, the chill had set in. We agreed to cut our loop short, check the squirrel tree once more, and call it a night. At the tree, our patience and impatience bore fruit: a pair of raccoons in the low branches—and two tiny flying squirrels dancing rings around the upper trunk like a couple of overcaffeinated lichens. Swoon!

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Life List

These are all the kinds of birds we've seen and/or heard on Bird Club trips, ordered taxonomically. Our most recent lifers are marked in chartreuse.

So far, we have observed 99 different species:

1. Brant
2. Canada Goose
3. Mute Swan
4. Wood Duck
5. Northern Shoveler
6. Gadwall
7. Mallard
8. Greater Scaup
9. Surf Scoter
10. Black Scoter
11. Long-tailed Duck
12. Bufflehead
13. Hooded Merganser
14. Red-breasted Merganser
15. Ruddy Duck
16. Rock Pigeon
17. Mourning Dove
18. Common Nighthawk
19. Chimney Swift
20. American Coot
21. Sanderling
22. Purple Sandpiper
23. American Woodcock
24. Spotted Sandpiper
25. Laughing Gull
26. Ring-billed Gull
27. Herring Gull
28. Great Black-backed Gull
29. Common Loon
30. Northern Gannet
31. Double-crested Cormorant
32. American Bittern
33. Great Blue Heron
34. Great Egret
35. Snowy Egret
36. Green Heron
37. Black-crowned Night-Heron
38. Turkey Vulture
39. Osprey
40. Sharp-shinned Hawk
41. Bald Eagle
42. Red-tailed Hawk
43. Belted Kingfisher
44. Red-bellied Woodpecker
45. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
46. Downy Woodpecker
47. Hairy Woodpecker
48. Northern Flicker
49. American Kestrel
50. Monk Parakeet
51. Eastern Kingbird
52. Eastern Phoebe
53. Warbling Vireo
54. Blue Jay
55. American Crow
56. Fish Crow
57. Black-capped Chickadee
58. Tufted Titmouse
59. Barn Swallow
60. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
61. Golden-crowned Kinglet
62. Cedar Waxwing
63. Red-breasted Nuthatch
64. White-breasted Nuthatch
65. Brown Creeper
66. Carolina Wren
67. Gray Catbird
68. Northern Mockingbird
69. European Starling
70. Veery
71. Hermit Thrush
72. Swainson's Thrush
73. Wood Thrush
74. American Robin
75. House Sparrow
76. House Finch
77. American Goldfinch
78. Chipping Sparrow
79. Dark-eyed Junco
80. White-crowned Sparrow
81. White-throated Sparrow
82. Song Sparrow
83. Swamp Sparrow
84. Eastern Towhee
85. Orchard Oriole
86. Baltimore Oriole
87. Red-winged Blackbird
88. Brown-headed Cowbird
89. Common Grackle
90. Ovenbird
91. Northern Waterthrush
92. Black-and-white Warbler
93. Common Yellowthroat
94. American Redstart
95. Yellow Warbler
96. Palm Warbler
97. Pine Warbler
98. Yellow-rumped Warbler
99. Northern Cardinal

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Record of Unusual Sightings

This is where we keep track of all the cool things Bird Clubbers have come across.

Submit an unusual sighting here.

Date	Location	Unusual Sighting
1/1/2023	Windermere, FL	Sayed saw a couple of LIMPKINS -- wonderful snail-eating birds.

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• Name:
• What you saw:
• Where you saw it:
• Date seen:
• Submit

If you would like to include images, please email them to birdclub1234567@gmail.com.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I know nothing about birds/birding. Can I join?

A: YES!!! You should definitely join. Most of our members are beginners.

Q: I am an experienced birder. Can I join?

A: YES!!! Sayed is starting to feel irresponsible about calling every gull a ring-billed gull, when in truth he has no idea what kind of gull it is. So please come ID the gulls for us.

Q: Who wrote their gull joke first? Ben in his "About Us" blurb, or Sayed in the F.A.Q.?

A: Sayed wrote his gull joke before Ben wrote his, but Sayed and Ben agree that Ben's is better.

Q: I don't live in New York. Can I join?

A: SURE!!! Even if you're unable to participate in our walks in New York, you are more than welcome to join our list, submit to the sightings log, routinely check your junk inbox for Bird Club missives, and so forth. For instance, Ben lives in California, but we still find ways to rope him into our crap. Maybe we'll have actual virtual events at some point.

Q: How does this work, exactly?

A: O.K., so first you join the mailing list. Then Sayed will email you to tell you when/where the bird walks are. And then you respond indicating your intent to come on the walk, and whether or not you need binoculars. And then you go on the walk.

Q: Do you do anything besides bird walks?

A: We sure would like to. We definitely plan on going to see bird movies, etc.

Q: Have you ever been pooped on?

A: In over fifteen years of birding, I (Sayed) have never been pooped on by a bird. However, I have seen it happen to others. Also, one time in college we pissed off some yellowjackets somehow and Emma Remy got stung like three times.

Q: I didn't ask about yellowjackets. I only asked about poop.

A: Yes, I know, but I thought it was a relevant story. Anyway, usually nothing of the sort happens.

Q: Good. Are the bird walks free?

A: Yes! If we take a train/bus out to somewhere far away, you would probably need to cover your transportation. But that's about it.

Q: What should I bring on a bird walk?

A: If you have binoculars of your own, bring them! If not, no worries—just let us know when you're signing up for a walk and we'll loan you a pair. Apart from that, maybe water as you see fit. Our routine walks tend to be no longer than 2 hours long.

Q: What should I wear on a bird walk?

A: Generally we stick to well-kept city park trails, so don whatever footwear you think appropriate for a light hike. Conventional birding wisdom also discourages wearing white clothing, since white is the warning color of the animal world, or something. But in practice I've never observed it to be a big deal.

Q: Why are the bird walks so early?

A: You have doubtlessly heard the famous phrase, "the early bird gets the worm." (Probably unsolicited.) Well, birds just love facile little sayings like that, and as such, they are most active and easiest to see early in the morning. (Just before dusk is pretty good too, but mornings are best.) We do try to mix in some afternoon and late morning outings in addition to the early ones.

Q: We signed up for a walk and showed up promptly at the scheduled time. We've been waiting here for 20 minutes. Where are you?

A: Zzzzzzzz....

Q: Seriously?!

A: Ha ha! Just kidding! I'm probably just stuck on the train, although in my prior club I once, MAYBE twice, slept through a walk I was supposed to lead. Check your email for an apologetic message and an ETA. If you don't see one, you can go ahead and assume the worst.

Q: I have a question which isn't included here. Help!

A: Send it via one of the last two options in the list on the left :)

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Join Us

Enter your contact info here to be added to our mailing list. Check your inbox for an email from birdclub1234567@gmail.com within the next day or so. Alternatively, you can click "Email us directly" on the left.

• Name:
• E-mail:
• Message (optional):
• Submit

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