Black-capped Chickadee (Photo: Alan D. Wilson / Wikimedia)

New York Bird Watching

Birding New York

Even though—or perhaps because — it is next door to New York City, Long Island is the State of New York’s hottest birding hotspot, in terms of species observed and number of reports filed with eBird. If you can visit anywhere along the state’s coastline, odds are, birding will be good throughout the year. But there are plenty of other must-visit birdy spots in Upstate New York, too. Lake Erie, the Niagara River, Lake Ontario, and the St. Lawrence River form the state’s northwestern border providing a waterway that regularly draws vagrants from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes. In the mostly forested and hilly interior, the Finger Lakes, Adirondack and Catskill mountains, and the Mohawk and Hudson river valleys, are scenic and diverse, and a great place to find nesting songbirds in summer.