The Subway Birder
NYC birding, one train line at a time.
The Subway Birder is how I bird New York City: by MetroCard, in public parks, at a respectful distance. Read the full intro →
Below is the running column: field dispatches, profiles, advocacy history, ethics.
Recent dispatches
-
The Theater With No Screen, The Beach With No Dogs
A volunteer's first months with the NYC Plover Project. Building the symbolic fence in March, learning the protocols in May, and the conversation about your dog.
-
The Rare Dog That Looks for Peents
A French spaniel saved from extinction, bred for woodcock, and how a line of them ended up in my family. What I've learned about birding with a dog in New York City.
-
The Okinawa Rail That Made Me a NYC Birder
Before NYC, before the subway, a flightless bird in a subtropical forest and a college paper I wrote post-service in Okinawa. That was the beginning of the practice.
-
The 22-Year-Old Who Helped Invent Modern Birdwatching
Florence Merriam Bailey was 22 when she became the AOU's first female associate member. She helped invent modern birdwatching from inside a movement, not its edges.
-
Celebrity Birds: The Bryant Park Woodcocks
The American Woodcocks that took over Bryant Park this spring, the sound everyone got wrong, and the window-strike story TikTok didn't cover.
-
Spring Migration 2026: Peak Timing and the Warbler Fallouts
BirdCast clocked 5 million birds over NYC on April 8–9. Where to see peak spring migration this Earth Week, and why 90°F April is changing the math.
What this column covers
- Train lines, not trailheads.
- Every post anchors to a subway line or route.
- NYC parks and coastlines.
- From Central Park to Jamaica Bay to the Rockaways.
- Seasonal timing.
- Fallouts, peaks, shoulder weeks, winter waterfowl.
- Real field logs.
- Dates, weather, bird counts, what I missed.
- Photo credit.
- My own photos, archived at Macaulay when possible.
One dispatch a month
Get new Field Notes in your inbox
Free, no sponsors. One NYC bird,
one field observation, one link
worth clicking.