Sandy Hook is one of my favorite places to bird and photograph. It gets an amazing array of species (I’ve picked up quite a few life birds here) and has enough unrestricted access to get the shots that I want. It’s an extremely reliable place to find Piping Plovers and American Oystercatchers, but during migration [...]

It is no secret that Cape May, NJ is one of the best birding locations in the US. I made the trip down to Cape May this Spring to spend a few days for the second year in a row. From my two years of experience at Cape May, it is not the best or [...]

Spring has arrived in the northeast and with it several species of warblers. Last weekend I spent some time birding and photographing at Liberty State Park in New Jersey. There were quite a few first-of-the-year birds for me, including a beautiful male Prairie Warbler, a set of 5 Greater Yellowlegs and a singing Carolina Wren. [...]

Last weekend I went to Sandy Hook, NJ to see if any of the early shorebirds (American Oystercatcher and Piping Plover) had shown up yet. Sure enough, they had. The American Oystercatchers were already paired up and displaying courtship behavior. There were several Piping Plovers (10) on the North Shore of Sandy Hook, but only [...]

You may have recently read about the very well seen vagrant Fork-tailed Flycatcher in Stamford, Connecticut on my blog that I saw and photographed about two weeks ago. This time another great rarity has shown up in Long Island, a Hermit Warbler (Dendroica occidentalis). Yes, a Hermit Warbler was found by Vinny Pellegrino at Sunken [...]

I added a spectacular bird to my life list today, a Fork-tailed Flycatcher. This bird normally can be found in Central and South America, but the species is known to travel outside of it’s normal range and shows up in North America from time to time. The bird that I saw today was seen in [...]

The Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) is a small shorebird that is threatened and endangered in North America. Foraging behavior resembles that of an American Robin. It is often seen running quickly across the sand, stopping suddenly, and then pecking and catching prey. It primarily breeds along the Atlantic Coast from North Carolina to Canada and [...]

Sandy Hook is a fantastic place not only to find birds, but also because of its geographical and historical properties. It is a somewhat small peninsula extending northward into the Lower New York Bay. This unique location is why it has been used for forts, lighthouses, and even a Coast Guard Station. It’s history is [...]