Finally a Rufous!

Number 266 for my Pennsylvania list, the female Rufous Hummingbird I was able to see in Berks County this past week was a delight. When I first arrived at the house that it has been frequenting for about a month now, the hummingbird was nowhere to be seen. I was treated to a lovely overview [...]

Backyard Finches

For the last few weeks, finch numbers have really increased in my backyard, thanks in large part to a cool double sock nyger seed feeder that really seems to draw in both American Goldfinches and Pine Siskins. My high counts have been 32 goldfinches and 5 siskins at one time.

The double sock stuffed with njyer [...]

Superflight 2007-2008

As posted on BirdChat-

We are experiencing the biggest winter finch irruption since the”superflight” of 1997-1998, when many boreal finches went well beyondtheir normal ranges. The cause is the largest tree seed crop failurein a decade across more than 3200 km (2000 mi) of boreal forest fromSaskatchewan into Quebec. Today in Toronto, I had a Pine [...]

Bird Migration Forecast

Despite the much lauded launch of Cape May Bird Observatory’s, the most exciting thing for me on the site is the Mid-Atlantic Birding Forecast. When its updated, it provides a nice update on the potential weather conditions for movements of birds. David La Puma of woodcreeper.com is the guy who updates it and he has [...]

Migration tonight

It looks like migration could be pretty strong tonight, check out the radar image below.

*update* I went out and did some moon-watching thanks to the post that Woodcreeper put on the Jersey listserv concluding the same thing I did; there was substantial migration going on. I counted 60 birds crossing the moon in 16 minutes [...]

10 Ways to See more Birds

These aren’t backed by any guarantee, just what has held true from my experience. In no particular order I present you with 10 ways to see more birds.
Walk slower. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen people walk past birds because they aren’t walking slow enough, giving the birds more time to [...]

Big Migration

Looks like the birds are really on the move tonight. It’s quite exciting to be able to see the movements on radar. For more information on this technique as well as commentary and predictions on the flight in New Jersey, check out woodcreeper.com.