cytherian
Active member

Last year I had the opportunity to take an apartment with a close friend in a high-rise building in NJ. There are numerous such apartment complexes along the Palisades bluffs overlooking the Hudson River. There's a park nearby and occasionally one can spot birds of prey. So I started making time to watch for them from my balcony, in their active seasons. Prior to this most of my bird watching would take place on Eastern Long Island in the summer. So many shore birds like swans, egrets (small & great), herrons, cormorants, terns, sandpipers, plovers, and many varieties of seagulls. Nuthatches, sparrows, finches, cardinals, warblers, orioles, etc. would come to the window bird feeder. But the most pleasure I got was providing nectar for hummingbirds, getting to see these amazing creatures up close. Studying them I'd recognize certain feeding/perching behaviors as well as markings that convinced me some of them were repeat visitors across several years. Anyway, that's about the extent of my birding. Looking forward to learning more about the hobby from folks here! 