Bird of the Year 2025

By Keith Michael

Welcome to these high-flying festivities on Pier 57 at Hudson River Park’s Discovery Tank for the 20th Annual West Village Bird of the Year Awards 2025—The Millies! Last year, this ceremony took place a few blocks south of here at “Millie’s Bench” on possibly the coldest, blusteriest morning of the winter. A handful of hardy, hearty celebrants donned thermal layers to applaud the birds of NYC. Gracious thanks to Hudson River Park for offering this cozy venue.

These awards began in 2005 at the corner of West 4th and West 12th streets where a pink House Finch became Bird #1 on my NYC bird-counting list—now up to #338 species. In 2012 the awards were dubbed “The Millies” in honor of my indifferent birding accomplice: a singular, red and white Pembroke Welsh Corgi. This is the fifth ceremony without Miss Millie’s unscripted disdain. Even in her absence, she has now inspired 14 years of monthly avian tales with her combination of mirth and side-eyed disapproval. Everyone, please let out a resounding “Awooooo” in her memory and as thanks to The Village View for continuing to host this annual neighborhood celebration!

Before we begin, a reminder of the founding criteria for The Millies: “Birds must be seen in, above, or from the five boroughs of New York. Voting is weighted toward those birds observed during Millie’s daily walks in the West Village. Additional points may be given to those candidates actually seen by the award’s namesake.” The Awards Committee continues to honor the anarchic disregard Millie had for ANY rules while comparing the attributes of each new avian candidate. The competition in 2025 was, as always, feather-ruffling!

Traditionally, these first three awards were programmed mid-ceremony because Millie disapproved and it gave her the chance to get a drink of water or nap.

EXTRALIMITAL. Several choices flew across my path for this “you have to work for it” category honoring birds seen outside of New York City. A cheeky pair of Canada Jays pilfering peanuts from the palm of my hand in the Adirondacks were the prime runners-up. The honor of this traveler’s award goes to a duo of unapologetically noisy Pileated Woodpeckers who woke me up on a Pennsylvania campsite the morning after, memorably, the side of my tent was grazed by a bear.

CUTEST BIRD OF THE YEAR. Honestly, this award was never given on Millie’s watch. She prohibited any acknowledgment of cuteness other than herself. The Piping Plover chicks of Fort Tilden, Queens are perennial contestants. Other viable contenders are the multiple ducklings hatched in Hudson River Park or a pipsqueak Winter Wren who photobombed the rarer Connecticut Warbler in the Trinity Church Cemetery. However, this judge unanimously chooses a plush-toy pair of Great Horned Owlets—watched on a soggy morning from a respectful distance at an undisclosed location.

NOT A BIRD. While out looking for birds, other critters invariably show up. If I expanded this category to consider extralimital creatures, my first sightings of a Weasel family (NY) and a Fisher (PA) would tie for this accolade. A triple tie could easily include that PA campsite bear! Leaving behind the awesomeness of NYC whale and dolphin watching, other “at home” candidates include: a winter Ghost Crab on a Queens beach methodically balling sand out of its burrow, dozens of Italian Wall Lizards sunning themselves on the gravestone slabs at Brooklyn’s Washington Cemetery, or a Central Park Raccoon family that secured air-conditioned summer housing in Glen Span Arch. After years of searching and waiting for him, the champion is the white squirrel of Prospect Park who finally made an appearance for me. Behold Mr. Bumble.

REALLY NOT A BIRD. This was a new category for honorary citations added last year. The first is a PLUS: The January spectacle of the Hudson River freezing which we hadn’t seen in years. Millie might actually have liked this acknowledgement because the other-worldly sloshing of the icy pancakes always perked up her ears. The second is a MINUS: With new construction in Hoboken, in the coming year the celestial spectacle of the sun or full moon setting behind the Erie Lackawanna Tower will fade into the gossamer past. Look for it now.

TRY, TRY AGAIN. An explosive Bronx cheer is all that these three birds deserve. I tried four times for each of them. Stingily, each failed to make an appearance: a lime green female Painted Bunting out in Far Rockaway, an American White Pelican that spent the summer at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, and a diminutive Cackling Goose at Pelham Bay Park in The Bronx. Boo. Hiss.

CYRANO DE BERGERAC PRIZE. This is an eccentric award for eccentric physiognomy. Is the most extravagant orange bill the carrot honker of the Caspian Tern? The clownish spear of the American Oystercatcher? Or the candy corn schnozzle of the Black Skimmer? “Your nose is rather large,” you say? Admire the intricate sculpting of the Surf Scoter’s prow.

JUST BECAUSE or I’M PRETTY AND I KNOW IT. The nominees for this brawl of a category were many and varied—too lengthy to potentially leave anyone out. Argue amongst yourselves, but the winner is an Osprey, savvy at ordering takeout.

FEMALE BIRD OF THE YEAR. This one’s easy. The one and only “Astoria,” the resident Wild Turkey hen of Battery Park, is the hands down winner, representing the fairer 50% of the bird population.

BEST PARENTING or LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. This award is blatantly unfair. Owls and eagles and geese, oh my. Each of the tens of thousands of parent birds who successfully raise offspring within NYC deserves this accolade. Nevertheless, a Red-tailed Hawk pair deserve worldwide credit for tending a nest on the equator of the Unisphere, symbol of the 1964/1965 World’s Fair, in Flushing Meadows Park.

TWO BY TWO. Kudos go to two birds who posed photogenically together. The subtle spectacle of two Solitary Sandpipers (that’s their name) brushing wingtips at Ridgewood Reservoir in Brooklyn vie for the glory against a pair of roly-poly American Woodcocks in Bryant Park, and a territorial couple of Soras scuffling in Queens. But this year’s duo receiving the accolade is an elegant pair of Bald Eagles who materialized out of the mist on Shooter’s Island off of Staten Island.

SAFETY IN NUMBERS. Just as people congregate in cities for their own greater good, birds flock together for survival. A highlight crowd this year was an extralimital sunset murmuration of tens of thousands of Purple Martins along the marshes of Maurice River, New Jersey as they staged for their migration south. Closer to home, a punk-rock flock of 150 Royal Terns surprised me at Jacob Riis Park in Queens. However, at the same beach, I was truly bedazzled by a synchronized congregation of thousands of winter Sanderlings whooshing by me close enough to feel their wingbeats. They get my vote.

OWL OF THE YEAR. Six species of owls graced my path this year—each of them memorable, each of them screeching for an award. I’m going to have to give this one up to a ridiculously cooperative Barred Owl whoooo delighted, perhaps, thousands of rubberneckers this fall in Central Park.

MILLIE’S WEST VILLAGE NEW BIRD OF THE YEAR. Since Millie was a neighborhood-only kind of gal, this was her favorite award because these are the birds to whom she could have given her highest praise: to ignore them in person. Remarkably, there were five new birds for me this year in the West Village: #115 Horned Grebe, #116 Eastern Wood-Pewee, #117 Northern House Wren, #118 Lincoln’s Sparrow, and #119 Clay-colored Sparrow. Millie’s selection is the one she could have seen right around the corner from her front door—if she had deigned to look up: the more often heard rather than seen Eastern Wood-Pewee,

NEW NYC BIRD OF THE YEAR. This year’s quartet of contestants was a varied lot. There was a Thick-billed Murre hanging out with the multitude of black-and-white winter ducks in Gravesend Bay, a way off-course from Central and South America Fork-tailed Flycatcher on Randall’s Island, a living-up-to-its-name Little Gull seen oh-so-distantly at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens, and this year’s prize winner: a foraging white-eye-ringed Vesper Sparrow picked out on the vast parade ground of Van Cortlandt Park in The Bronx.

BIRD OF THE YEAR 2025. This is a heartbreaking/exhilarating moment in this birder’s year. It’s time to choose just one superlative bird possessing a combination of rarity, resilience, accessibility, and beauty. The envelope, please. The Bronze Medal: Green-Wood Cemetery’s young, dashing male Red-headed Woodpecker who worked for weeks filling larders and refurbishing multiple home sites to woo a damsel who never arrived. The Silver Medal: the Halloween-colored Varied Thrush, a wayfarer from the west coast, who entertained bird enthusiasts for weeks in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. But now, raise your mugs of hot chocolate. The Gold Medal goes to an especially dreamy color morph of our already runway-ready common Wood Duck, who frequented Kissena Park and Oakland Lake in Queens: the devilishly handsome “Silver” Wood Duck.

It’s always hard to bring this ceremony to a close, because it means the end of another borough-hopping birding year in this birdiest of cities: New York City. Don’t take my word for it. Go out and see the Birds of NYC for yourselves in 2026!

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