The One That I Want

By Keith Michael

I’m greedy. Even while doing a happy dance for the arrival of spring birds, I don’t want the winter birds to leave. And even though, in three short weeks between January 31 and February 20, I added four new birds to my West Village Bird List—I still want more.

Back in March, I promised to tell you about my third new West Village Bird from February. Surprise! I also added a FOURTH new bird. Frankly, with that first new bird of 2026, an unexpected Hooded Merganser pair (WVB #120) and then, spotting a Bald Eagle (WVB #121) after many years of anticipation, I was jazzed to expect that any bird might be a new bird. During those frozen weeks with ice jostling on the Hudson River, Bald Eagles had become, practically, “common.” A soaring black bird? Bald Eagle. A dark spot on an ice flow? Bald Eagle. A scuffle with a seagull? Bald Eagle. Every bobbing dark patch became a heart-racing contender for a new bird.

Winter water birds mostly come in variations of black, white, and gray which serve as camouflage against steely water reflecting overcast skies. The ocean birds from the Arctic north that visit us are all designed for catching aquatic critters. If you’re a fish or crustacean looking up, these birds’ white breasts disappear in the glow of the water above them. From the sky, the breakup patterns on their backs blur against the waves, protecting them from hungry eagles looking down. These adaptations give the birds the survival advantage—both from above and from below.

This clever black-and-white scheme nearly tricked me into overlooking my WVB #122 diving in the open water around Hudson River Park’s Pier 49 pilings: a Long-tailed Duck. I love seeing Long-tailed Ducks in the winter. Satisfyingly, their name is spot on. It is a duck with a long tail. One can see their two fancifully long tail feathers easily when they’re in flight, or diving, leaving a poetic water arc behind them. If that’s not enough of a distinctive allure, their feather patterns are eccentric for a duck. Their patchy whites and blacks, though not random, seem like a line drawing in a coloring book that’s been smudged. What’s more, unlike most ducks that annually cycle through a breeding (fancy) and non-breeding (dull) plumage, this arctic visitor conjures up three distinct looks during the year. The molting transitions between those seasonal looks, the male and female fashionista subtleties, as well as differences between juvenile and adult birds, all add up to a confusing array of variations.

My go-to destination to see Long-tailed Ducks is Fort Tilden along the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens. Small groups congregate around the crashing waves at the breakwaters. They seem to seek out the roughest water. They can stay underwater for an impossibly long time, popping up again far from where they disappeared with that long-tail-flipping dive. Their dare-deviltry is transporting.

The calm of a West Village pile field with bobbing chunks of ice is not where I’d think to look for a Long-tailed Duck. Furthermore, the relatively brief time this duck spends at the surface of the water, their penchant for popping up again where you’d least expect it, and the pinball machine obstacles of the ice-capped pilings, all made for lucky spotting. The mottled plumage only added to the overall needle-in-a-haystack effect. Nevertheless, there one was.

I was more primed for my fourth new bird sighting. The Common Goldeneye (WVB #123) is yet another black and white winter duck. I’d heard that several had been seen on the icy river both north and south of the West Village. It wasn’t so far-fetched to think that one or a couple might drift by on the changing tide. Is that it? Nope. That one’s a male Bufflehead. It has the prerequisite color palette but with a white wedge at the back of its head. How about that one? In this light it looks dark with a white spot on its face like a Goldeneye. Oh, it just went down. Back up again. Once more, nope. Too small. That’s a female Bufflehead this time. How about over there in the pile field north of Pier 40? Greater Scaup? That would be another new West Village bird! There’s a trio of them. Maybe I can get closer on the Pier 40 walkway. They’ve got the white-on-the-bottom/black-on-the-top look going on like a Scaup, but they don’t have a dark front and, yes, there’s a white spot in front of that one’s eye. Bingo! It IS a Common Goldeneye! For the next several days, I continued to see up to five of these classy visitors on the river.

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But I’ve gotten off the topic of the next bird that I really want to see. Having now added a Bald Eagle to my West Village list, my Next Most Wanted Bird slot opened up for an American Woodcock. Right now, in April, you could likely go up to Bryant Park at 42nd Street, stroll the perimeter paths, look for a clutch of photographers with long camera lens, follow their gaze, and there would be your Woodcock! Been there. Done that. Often. But I want to see one gracing MY West Village neighborhood. Why? Just because. That’s the logic of watching birds.

An American Woodcock is a charismatic bird with the unlikely silhouette of a caramel apple on a stick. They have a rotund body (the apple) and an improbably long bill (the stick.) Their eyes pop prominently from the sides of their heads, giving them nearly 360-degree vision. They do a beguiling bebopping walk while probing for earthworms with that long bill, and in the right locations, they perform an acrobatic, aerial mating dance at dusk and dawn. What’s not to be charmed by?

So far, a Woodcock has not shown up on my doorstep. If you do see one, please let me know.