Welcome to the Birds of Central Park Web site

Follow the Twitter feeds on the right for the latest sightings in Central Park. You can also check the more extensive feeds in the forums for area birding and ecology news. If you have questions or comments post them there.

View the map for information on birding "hotspots" and follow the bird reports in the forum for the latest sightings in the park.

We have also launched new Forums and Photo Gallery that focus on Central Park birds and birding. If you were formerly a member you must reregister on the new site.

Questions or comments? Send us an e-mail via the contact button in the main menu.

Consider supporting the Wild Bird Fund and practice your bird IDs with the image on the right (press the "Refresh" button on your browser to load a different image).

NYNYBIRD is a text alert system for disseminating unusual bird sightings in New York County (Manhattan).

Birds reportable to NYNYBIRD should simply include any wild bird species that are unusual in Manhattan. The purpose of NYNYBIRD is to alert birders so that anyone interested in seeing an unusual bird can get the information as soon as possible. As it is unlikely that most observers have a list of New York County bird records memorized, good judgment is requested.

For more information or to sign-up for the service go to: http://nynybird.wordpress.com/

NYNYBirds runs on TextMark and is paid for by the creator of the service. To donate go to the site and click on the donation button.

We were saddened to hear of the passing of Starr Saphir on February 5th, at Calvary Hospice in New York, where she had been receiving palliative care after an eleven-year battle with breast cancer.

Our paths crossed many times in the north end of Central Park. She was one of the few people to offer walks in the north end in the early 2000's and she was always quick to pass on sightings and helpful hints.

Starr Saphir says, in the 2012 HBO documentary Birders: The Central Park Effect, that there wasn't much money in offering bird walks Central Park, as she had at that time for nearly 30 years, but she's doing something she loves. "I don't look forward to retiring," she explains. "I am enormously lucky in that I absolutely love what I do every day that I do it. It doesn't mean that it's not tedious for moments, or for hours, or the day when you have to come up with 38 birds and the birds are not cooperating, and you end up with 37. It's work. But I could keep this up for, I think, for hundreds of years. Nobody gets a chance to find that out."

She will be missed.

Read the article about Starr on the NPR Web site.