Book Description

New York City’s favorite naturalist returns with a guided tour of the beautiful birds living in the five boroughs. Look around New York, and you’ll probably see birds: wood ducks swimming in Queens, a stalking black-crowned night-heron in Brooklyn, great horned owls perching in the Bronx, warblers feeding in Central Park, or Staten Island’s purple martins flying to and fro. You might spot hawks and falcons nesting on skyscrapers or robins belting out songs from trees along the street. America’s largest metropolis teems with birdlife in part because it sits within the great Atlantic flyway where migratory birds travel seasonally between north and south. The Big Apple’s miles of coastline, magnificent parks, and millions of trees attract dozens of migrating species every year and are also home year-round to scores of resident birds. There is no better way to identify and learn about New York’s birds than with this comprehensive field guide from New York City naturalist Leslie Day. Her book will quickly teach you what each species looks like, where they build their nests, what they eat, the sounds of their songs, what time of year they appear in the city, the shapes and colors of their eggs, and where in the five boroughs you can find them?which is often in the neighborhood you call home. The hundreds of stunning photographs by Beth Bergman and gorgeous illustrations by Trudy Smoke will help you identify the ninety avian species commonly seen in New York. Once you enter the world of the city’s birds, life in the great metropolis will never look the same. “‘Take this guide wherever you go,’ [Day] implores readers in the introduction. And we hope many do, since it reveals a New York we long to see, the wild, beautiful city of birds known to Audubon, Chapman, and Griscom.” —Chuck Hagner, BirdWatching Magazine “An excellent guide for New York City residents. If you have any interest in the birds around you (and there are plenty of birds around you, even in NYC), this guide will really open your eyes.” —Birder's Library “Day’s deeply researched and richly illustrated Field Guide to the Neighborhood Birds of New York City will be indispensable to locals and tourists alike.” —Sierra “Will fill a niche for beginning birders and backyard watchers in the northeastern U.S.” —Choice “You don’t have to live in or be visiting New York to enjoy this book.” —Times Literary Supplement (UK)