A YEAR IN BIRDS — 2022

Man, it feels like just yesterday I was writing the recap and compiling data for 2021. This past year turned out to be a whirlwind of a year and it absolutely, without a doubt, flew by wayyyy faster for me than any other year of my entire life.

Somehow, between the cracks of an ever-more-intense musical schedule I am pursuing, I managed to still maintain birding as an important pillar of my life. For the first half of the year, photos are stored my flashdrive which I’m honestly too lazy to open just for a recap post, so I will link blog posts for my first-half highlights, followed by photos from this fall. Hope you enjoy this annual recap of a “year in birding.”

2022 LIFERS (18 in total bringing my life list up to 1143 species)
February 2: Slaty-backed Gull, Central Park Reservoir, New York, NY
February 12: Common Gull, Cummings Park, Stamford, CT
April 13: Mottled Duck, Ketchum Creek, Copiague, NY
May 12: Bicknell’s Thrush, Central Park North Woods, New York, NY
May 24: Black Rail, North Dunes Nature Preserve, Winthrop Harbor, IL
June 7: Eurasian Hoopoe, Chateau Juandis, Bergerac, France
June 7: Willow Warbler, Chateau Juandis, Bergerac, France
June 7: Cirl Bunting, Chateau Juandis, Bergerac, France
June 7: Eurasian Green Woodpecker, Chateau Juandis, Bergerac, France
June 8: Red Kite, Chateau Juandis, Bergerac, France
June 11: Cetti’s Warbler, Villereal, France
June 11: Short-toed Treecreeper, Villereal, France
June 14: Black-winged Kite, Villereal, France
August 18: Pygmy Nuthatch, Schoolhouse Gulch Trail, Garden Valley, ID
October 17: Black-capped Petrel, Atlantic Ocean, NY
October 17: Pomarine Jaeger, Atlantic Ocean, NY
October 17: Audubon’s Shearwater, Atlantic Ocean, NY
October 17: Bermuda Petrel, Atlantic Ocean, NY

2022 RECAP—

January was slow for me, but things really started to pick up in february with my lifer Slaty-backed Gull in Central Park:https://worldbirding.travellerspoint.com/909/

Beautiful, incredible sunset views of a Snowy Owl out on Long Island:
https://worldbirding.travellerspoint.com/910/

And my lifer Common Gull in Connecticut:
https://worldbirding.travellerspoint.com/911/

March brought a taste of Spotted Salamander migration to New Jersey which was cool to experience:
https://worldbirding.travellerspoint.com/916/

And the arrival of warblers to NYC in April is always a magical sight.
https://worldbirding.travellerspoint.com/918/

Central Park was great this spring with a photographed Chuck-will’s-widow.
https://worldbirding.travellerspoint.com/921/

As well as a lifer Bicknell’s Thrush was absolutely sick.
https://worldbirding.travellerspoint.com/925/

A few herp lifers up in the Hudson Valley in mid-May were crazy cool, highlighted by a stunning adult Timber Rattlesnake, as well as several cooperative warblers.
https://worldbirding.travellerspoint.com/928/

Back home, getting my lifer Black Rail (even if heard-only) was mind-blowing.
https://worldbirding.travellerspoint.com/932/

Summer festivals in DC and France brought fantastic musical opportunities, and of course a few lifers in France!
https://worldbirding.travellerspoint.com/archive/062022/s6/

July was slower bird-wise but punctuated by a fantastic morning of breeding bird monitoring with a new friend, Alejandra.
https://worldbirding.travellerspoint.com/archive/072022/

My annual Idaho trip in August was a grand success, especially picking up a lifer in the form of twelve Pygmy Nuthatches with Poo and Nubs!
https://worldbirding.travellerspoint.com/946/

And picking up Spruce Grouse and a bunch of other goodies with Kathleen.
https://worldbirding.travellerspoint.com/949/

September 1 brought an amazing bird walk with point-blank views of a Black-billed Cuckoo for all participants.

Two amazing days of birding in October included the Queens Big Sit with over 90 species from Fort Tilden—

And the New York pelagic where we picked up a NY state first record and my lifer Bermuda Petrel, probably the rarest bird I have ever seen.

Amazing numbers of Great Shearwater on that trip, too:

My November highlights included a trip to Fisher’s Island with my friend Will. Our avian highlight was a clutch vagrant (for the date) Summer Tanager:

And during Thanksgiving break, I picked up my Illinois Rufous Hummingbird — the rarest bird I’ve seen in Oak Park to date!

Finally, the tail end to the year brought an incredible trip up to the Sax-Zim Bog with Bruce, Susie, and Kim highlighted by one Great Gray Owl for all three days, Boreal Chickadee, a Porcupine, and a lot of other neat wildlife!

Bird-of-the-year, hands-down, goes to the Bermuda Petrel which I can’t stress enough is probably the rarest and one of the most excitement-inducing sightings I’ve had to date. It more than made up for several dry spells I had in 2022 in regards to birding. What a mind-blowing experience to be on that one lucky pelagic trip. Runner-up has to honestly go to my lifer Pygmy Nuthatches which aren’t rare for where we found them, but were made special because it was a whole flock of them that surrounded us in the woods, and I got that lifer with very dear friends — Nubs and Poo.

And with that, we are into 2023, and as always, we bird on!! A few lifers I would love to pick up this year include Short-billed Gull, Atlantic Puffin, Greater Prairie-Chicken, Roseate Tern, Pinyon Jay, Himalayan Snowcock, and several alpine European species (I will be spending a month singing in Europe this summer, details TBA!).

Happy birding!
Henry
World Life List: 1143 Species (18 life birds this year)