Bird watching trip report


Introduction


COVID

I booked this trip for March 2020 but I had to cancel due to the Covid. So, I will do it in 2023 instead.

I was spending time on Youtube watching bird videos. I discovered a Mark Smith's Youtube channel I discovered some gorgeous videos and there was a link to his web page https://photoworkshopsandtours.com

I discovered that he was running photo tours and I booked 2 different tours and I booked 3 of each

• ROSEATE SPOONBILL PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP 2020
• FLORIDA DIVING AND FEEDING OSPREY PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP


I was told by the tour organizer that the best lens would be a minimum 600mm so I cancelled the trips. I looked around for other tours and Guides in South Florida, no answers so I wanted to cancel Florida. But I had come to learn a lot about the Everglades during my search on internet and it is for sure looking like an exciting birding destination.

So I decided to go to Florida, rent a car and drive around Everglades by myself.

My original plan was to go birding in New York and at Niagara Falls after Florida. And as to find a Birding Guide in Florida was hard, impossible. But I found several Gides in Colorado. And Rocky Mountains sounds very exciting.

Colorado, the people seem very friendly and I was offered a lot of help and I found a Guide. Canada, and I found a Guide at Birdingpal for the area around Peterborough NW of Toronto.

So I will arrive to Miami, pick up my rented car and drive to Florida City. At least on the map it looks to be as far south you can come before Florida turns in to wilderness. A perfect place to start my daily bird watching adventures.

So my bird watching holiday will look like this: Florida - Colorado - Canada - New York and then back home. And you will be able to find out what birds I have seen just by follow the links below.

My plans were made in 2019

So I am off three years later, the Guide I had found in Peterborough, Canada is no longer available.

I wanted to cancel Peterborough but I decided to go anyway. I will rent a car for my stay in Canada so I can go check out the birding areas around Peterborough.

And also, the coast line between Peterborough and Toronto when going back south to Toronto.

I was in contact with a birding company in San Francisco, but now they are not available as they are going on a tour to Texas, A South Texas Adventure

I asked if they had any seats and I booked this tour. And I will fly via San Francisco where I will rent a car. Just stop for three days to look for Humming birds before going to Texas.

So, my UPDATED bird watching holiday will look like this: Florida - Colorado - San Francisco - Texas - Canada - New York and then back home.


To skip the information and to go straight to the TRIP REPORT click HERE


VISA

Travel.State.Gov

Please visit https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-visit/visitor.html to see if you need a VISA. Maybe you are citizens of participating in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) Then you may be eligible to visit the United States without a visa. Visits must be 90 days or less, and travellers must meet all requirements.

Electronic System for Travel Authorization

Travelers must have a valid Electronic System for Travel approval prior to travel and meet all requirements explained below.

In order to travel without a visa on the VWP, you must have authorization through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) prior to boarding a U.S. bound air or sea carrier. ESTA is a web-based system operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to determine eligibility to travel under the VWP to the United States for tourism or business. Visit the ESTA webpage on the CBP website for more information.

Department of Homeland Security

WHAT DO I NEED TO APPLY?

• Valid passport(s) from a Visa Waiver Program country. (List of Visa Waiver Countries)

• Traveller’s valid email address.

• Traveller’s home address and phone number.

• Traveller’s emergency point of contact phone and email.

Payment method:
Fee for application is $14.00 USD.
Valid payment methods include MasterCard, VISA, American Express, Discover (JCB or Diners Club only), and PayPal.


Flights

I had to book a couple of tickets to get me where I wanted

Singapore Airlines SQ 709
Bangkok Intl           -          Singapore Intl
27March2023 15:30          27March2023 18:55



Singapore Airlines SQ 22
Singapore Intl           -         New York, Newark Intl
27March2023 23:35            28March2023 06:00



United Airlines flight UA1181
New York, Newark          -          Miami
29March2023 10:56                  29March2023 14:05



United Airlines flight UA2204
Miami               -            Denver
04Apr2023 08:00          04Apr2023 10:29



United Airlines flight UA1057
Denver             -              San Francisco
11Apr2023 13:26            11Apr2023 15:10



United Airlines UA1369/UA4256
San Francisco          -          Corpus Christi / via Houston
15April2023 09:51              15April2020 17:47



United Airlines UA1369/UA4256
Corpus Christi          -          Toronto Intl / via Houston
25April2023 12:21               25April2023 18:48



United Airlines UA3648
Toronto Intl          -          New York, Newark Intl
5May2023 10:32             5May2023 12:22



Singapore Airlines SQ 21
New York, Newark Intl         -        Singapore Intl
9May2023 10:25                          10May2023 17:10



Singapore Airlines SQ 706
Singapore Intl          -         Bangkok Intl
11May2020 07:10              11May2020 08:35



Land transportation

• AOT Limousine between my home and Bangkok International Airport

AOT Limousine

I recommend the AOT or any other taxi service if you are leaving early morning. The price per trip is 1200 Baht comparing to around 220 Baht + about 80 Baht road toll. But the taxi can easily be 1000 baht if you´re getting desperate when not finding a taxi.

Early morning flight and it can be a hassle to find a taxi that want to take you to the airport so I book AOT and the car wait for me outside my apartment.

Leaving Suvarnabhumi and AOT have desks in the luggage claim area, where I use to book my car while waiting for my luggage. There are also desks just outside the custom and you cannot miss them.




New York Newark Liberty Airport have an excellent web page. Click To & From EWR and choose your favorite means of transportation.

Lyft

You can use Lyft in USA and Canada. They say that UBER is a little bit more expensive but maybe worth trying. I had problem with Lyft a couple of times. GPS position was not correct so when I ooked a car for the hotel, both me and the Driver had the same destination.

But we arrived to a totaly different adress. And drivers that came to the wrong pick-up point. Not speaking English etc. But most of the time it was working well and I went to several birding hotspots using Lyft when I did not have a rented car.

Lyft


Accommodations

Candlewood Suites NYC -Times Square

• Candlewood Suites NYC -Times Square


Weather / climate

New York - Climate & Temperature
Pictures from www.climatemps.com

New York - Climate & Temperature - Click picture for full size picture
Pictures from www.climatemps.com


Equipment

Canon 5D Mk. III and Canon 5D Mk. IV
Canon EF 28-300/3,5-5,6 L IS USM
Canon EF 70-200/2,8L IS II USM
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens
Canon Speedlite 600EXII-RT flash
Canon PowerShot G7X Mark II
Panasonic HC-W585 video camera

Sound recorder
ZOOM H5 Handy Recorder


References/Resources

ebird - Find birding hotspots with bird checklists from all over the world

Avibase - is an extensive database information system about all birds of the world, containing over 25 million records about 10,000 species and 22,000 subspecies of birds, including distribution information for 12,000 regions, taxonomy, synonyms in several languages

Cloudbirders - Read birding trip reports from all over the world

Fatbirder - Linking birders worldwide... Wildlife Travellers see their sister site: WAND


Fatbirder is a fantastic web page with information from, I think every country in the world. My first stop when I plan for my bird watching trips. There is information about locations and guides, well, pretty much everything you need to know. Sometimes this is the only place I need to visit to plan my trip.

BirdingPal - find a birding Guide around the world

BirdingPal


And the web page you cannot live without. I have been around the world looking for birds. I usually have a Guide, but sometimes it is not possible to find a Guide. So, well, I have lost count on how many times I have had help to ID birds at BirdForum. Joining this forum have been very very good for my bird watching experience.

www.birdforum.net

ClimaTemps.com is the place to learn about the worlds climates with more than 4000 locations documented. Each aspect of the climate is represented using colour enhanced tables and professional graphs so that data can easily be compared by switching between locations in different tabs in your browser.

National Park Service

Since 1916, the National Park Service has been entrusted with the care of our national parks. With the help of volunteers and partners, we safeguard these special places and share their stories with more than 330 million visitors every year.

National Park Service - WOW !! And I mean WOW !! This is something I have not seen since New Zealand. What a page! All about the National Parks in USA. Chose a state from a map and a list of the National Parks are coming up. I clicked on Colorado and I had so much information about the visitor centres, trails and just about everything.

AUDABON - Protecting waterbird populations has been part of Audubon’s mission even before the official establishment of the National Audubon Society. Outrage over the slaughter of millions of waterbirds, particularly egrets and other waders, for the millinery trade led to the foundation, by Harriet Hemenway and Minna B. Hall, of the Massachusetts Audubon Society in 1896.

By 1898, state-level Audubon Societies had been established in Pennsylvania, New York, New Hampshire, Illinois, Maine, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, Minnesota, Texas, and California.

In 1900, Audubon member Frank M. Chapman launched the first Christmas Bird Count – Audubon’s all-volunteer holiday census of early-winter bird populations – as an alternative to the traditional Christmas “Side Hunt,” in which hunters competed to kill as many birds (and mammals) as possible.


This is a great web page! A great rescourse for bird watchers with a lot of information and guides.

Outside your door, on your way to work, at the beach—birds are everywhere. Whether you're a beginner looking for your first pair of binoculars or an experienced birder in search of identification tips, we have it all here for you. So go on, start exploring.



To reach the BIRDING you just choose GET OUTSIDE from the drop menu. Choose BIRDING and you reach the page with the below topics to choose from:

• How to Start Birding
• What You Need
• Identifying Birds
• In the Field
• Backyard Birding
• The Birdist’s Rules of Birding

Visit their Birding the United States - A state-by-state guide to the best birding hotspots around the country. To reach the interactive map you just choose GET OUTSIDE from the drop menu. Choose TRAVEL and choose a state on the interactive map. I get a list of HOT SPOTS that I can click on for more information.

Bird Watcher's Digest

Bird Watcher's Digest - A birding magazine with an interesting web page. Click the link EXPLORE - BIRDING BY REGION - then choose a state for information about pretty much everything you can wish for.

Official Website of the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation - NYC Parks is the steward of more than 30,000 acres of land — 14 percent of New York City — including more than 5,000 individual properties ranging from Coney Island Beach and Central Park to community gardens and Greenstreets.

We operate more than 800 athletic fields and nearly 1,000 playgrounds, 1,800 basketball courts, 550 tennis courts, 65 public pools, 51 recreational facilities, 15 nature centers, 14 golf courses, and 14 miles of beaches. We care for 1,200 monuments and 23 historic house museums.

We look after 600,000 street trees, and two million more in parks. We are New York City's principal providers of recreational and athletic facilities and programs. We are home to free concerts, world-class sports events, and cultural festivals.


Click PROGRAMS and then choose BIRDING SPOTS.

Curbed New York

Curbed New York - Best bird-watching spots in New York City - Descriptions for 4 parks with a map

Curbed New York

New York City Audubon - New York City Audubon champions nature in the City’s five boroughs through a combination of engaging and entertaining programs and innovative conservation campaigns. NYC Audubon is an independent non-profit organization affiliated with the National Audubon Society. Through its efforts, NYC Audubon protects many species of birds living in the 30,000 acres of wetlands, forests, and grasslands of New York City.

Discover Central Park

Discover Central Park - All the information about Central Park that you can wish for. And of course, there is a map

Central Park is a great place for birding as more than 270 species can be found here each year. Some live in the Park year-round, while others make a stopover to rest and feed during the spring and fall migrations.

The Park is a popular stopover because of its diverse habitats; trees and shrubs provide safe places to nest, and offer food in the form of seeds, berries, and the Park’s vast insect life. The Park’s water bodies, many of them adjacent to the woodlands, are welcoming homes for aquatic birds.

Favorite spots among birders include the North Woods, the Ramble, the Hallett Nature Sanctuary, and any water bodies. The best times of day to go birdwatching are early mornings and late afternoons, when birds are the most active.


The Beginner’s Guide to Birdwatching in Central Park - By Jessica Sain-Baird

National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America - National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, Sixth Edition is a great guide. In my review of the fifth edition I qualified my recommendation, especially for owners of a prior edition. Not so with the sixth – it belongs in every birder’s library! From beginner to expert, it will be useful to any birder. And for those interested in geographic variation, it is a must."
– Grant McCreary (29-12-2011), read the full review at The Birder's Library


National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America
National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America



Places to visit


• Central Park

• Riverside Park


Central Park

Central Park is an urban park in Manhattan, New York City, located between the Upper West Side and the Upper East Side. Central Park is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated 37.5–38 million visitors annually, and one of the most filmed locations in the world. Central Park is the fifth-largest park in New York City by area, covering 843 acres (3.41 km2).

Fauna
Central Park is frequented by various migratory birds during their spring and fall migration on the Atlantic Flyway, though it has a smaller bird population than larger parks such as Van Cortlandt Park. The first official list of birds observed in Central Park, numbering 235 species, was published in Forest and Stream in 1886 by Augustus G. Paine Jr. and Lewis B. Woodruff. Overall, a total of 303 bird species have been seen in the park since the first official list of records was published, including an estimated 200 species every season.

However, no single group is responsible for tracking Central Park's bird species. Some of the more famous birds include a male red-tailed hawk called Pale Male, who made his perch on an apartment building overlooking Central Park in 1991. A mandarin duck nicknamed Mandarin Patinkin received international media attention in late 2018 and early 2019 due to its colorful appearance and the species' appearance outside its native range in East Asia.

More infamously, Eugene Schieffelin released 100 imported European starlings in Central Park in 1890–1891, which led to them becoming an invasive species in North America.

Central Park has about ten species of mammals as of 2013. Bats, a nocturnal order, have been found in dark crevices in Central Park. Raccoons have become extremely common in the park, prompting the Parks Department to post rabies advisories. Eastern gray squirrels and Virginia opossums also live in the park, and though Eastern chipmunks are not commonly sighted in Central Park, they also inhabit the park boundaries.

There are also 223 invertebrate species in Central Park. One of them is Nannarrup hoffmani, a centipede species discovered in Central Park in 2002; it is one of the smallest centipedes in the world at about 10 mm long. Another, more prevalent species is the Asian long-horned beetle, an invasive species that has infected trees in Long Island and Manhattan, including in Central Park.

Turtles and fish also live in Central Park. Most of the turtles live in Turtle Pond, and many of these are former pets that were released into the park. The fish are scattered more widely, but they include several freshwater species, such as snakehead, an invasive species. While fishing is allowed in the Lake, Pond, and Harlem Meer, it is only permitted under a catch and release basis.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Riverside Park

Riverside Park may only be one-eighth of a mile wide, but it packs in the birdies. The forested and meadow areas between 116th and 124th streets are known as the Riverside Park Bird Sanctuary. Over the last three decades, at least 177 species of bird have been spotted in or near the 10-acre sanctuary, including rarities such as white-winged dove, chuck-will’s-widow, and the snowy owl.

From https://ny.curbed.com/



Bird checklist

I never use any bird lists, but since I try to make it in to Cloudbirders. A very helpful site when planning your birding trips. But they ask for a bird checklist, and if I use their service, of course I want to contribute as well. My two first bird watching trip reports was rejected by Cloudbirders.

So I started to take ideas from the reports I found on Cloudbirders. So I have started to use bird lists, eBird generate one for me and I can post it on Cloudbirders. I will post my birds on eBird and on my different “BIRDS THAT I HAVE OBSERVED” pages.

Check lists can come in handy to find out the local name of the bird etc. And Avibase have a list with pictures and sounds, excellent!

So I will post bird checklists here and if my Guides provide me with checklists I will also post them here.

Cloudbirders


Avibase - Bird Checklists of the World

New York bird checklist from Avibase, click HERE

Avibase is providing you with bird checklists from all over the world. And I´m impressed by their web page. Select country and area and you get the bird checklist. Like the PDF files I got from Avibase on the links above. You also get the checklist with pictures and sounds.

The best part is that you get the local names of the birds and the online checklist gives the names in English plus the language you have selected. But it seems like the PDF cannot handle some alphabet.

For example the Japanese language so it is blank in the PDF checklist. But it worked excellent with Ethiopian. But you get them in the local language on the online version.


Bird list

See My eBird checklists and the DAY TO DAY report in the itinerary below.

And you can visit my list of “Birds I have seen in North America


eBird

eBird Life List

I have decided to use the eBird Life List function instead of doing my own time-consuming Life List. I discovered eBird Trip Report in April 2023 during my bird watching in North America, a new function that I now do for my bird watching trips.

And as this working beautifully I decided to use their Life List function and I will save hundreds of hours doing my own lists.

Pictures and location available by clicking the links in the pdf document. If you are using eBird you should be familiar with how it works.



My eBird checklists can be found HERE

Hot tips





DAY BY DAY reports

Click on the below links for daily bird watching reports:

Day 1: 6th of May 2023 - Central Park
Day 2: 7th of May 2023 - Central Park
Day 3: 8th of May 2023 - Riverside Park Changed to go back to Central Park
Day 4: 9th of May 2023 - Flying back home to Bangkok

eBird

eBird Trip Report

Since April 2023 eBird offer a new feature, to create Trip Reports. At least this is when I first heard of this feature and I have decided to make the eBird Trip Reports instead of my list of OBSERVED birds.

And of course, this also means that I will HAVE TO go back and do the same for my old birding adventures, WHEN I HAVE THE TIME!

Today's Trip Report: Birding in New York - 5 May to 8 May 2023 | Click HERE

Download | PDF

Lifers
Icons for lifers used in the eBird trip reports

eBirdSpecies lifer: First time that someone observes a species in their life

eBirdPhoto lifer: First time that someone photographs a species in their life

eBirdAudio lifer: First time that someone audio records a species in their life

Exotic species
Exotic species flags differentiate locally introduced species from native species.

eBirdNaturalized: Exotic population is self-sustaining, breeding in the wild, persisting for many years, and not maintained through ongoing releases (including vagrants from Naturalized populations). These count in official eBird totals and, where applicable, have been accepted by regional bird records committee(s).

eBirdProvisional: Either: 1) member of exotic population that is breeding in the wild, self-propagating, and has persisted for multiple years, but not yet Naturalized; 2) rarity of uncertain provenance, with natural vagrancy or captive provenance both considered plausible.

When applicable, eBird generally defers to bird records committees for records formally considered to be of "uncertain provenance". Provisional species count in official eBird totals.

eBirdEscapee: Exotic species known or suspected to be escaped or released, including those that have
bred but don't yet fulfill the criteria for Provisional. Escapee exotics do not count in official eBird totals.



Bird watching trip report

       
                  


                                       

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