On the Side

 By Keith Michael

Bird watching is a portmanteau hobby. It can take you anywhere and you can take IT anywhere. Just open it up for layers upon layers of surprises. Waiting for the bus might unpack a dapper black-cravatted House Sparrow fellow stomping out his courtship dance fanning a mid-summer romance. Need a soundtrack on your way to the subway? The nearly sub-aural whining of nestlings high in a tree when Mom Robin just delivered their mid-mid-morning snack might be tucked away in that side pocket.

 New York City served up so many celebratory spectacles this summer that detoured me from my usual thither and yon devoted birding outings. Did those stop me from seeing birds? Nope.

Though not a sports fan, I was enthralled by NYC going bonkers over the Knicks win! When it came to the morning of the triumphal parade, a last-minute inspiration took me to One World Observatory for a bird’s eye view. Astonishingly, I was only about twentieth in line when the doors opened, and as hoped for, seeing the mass of blue and orange packing the downtown streets along the Broadway parade route was, indeed, a spectacle. More than the crowds and the might-as-well-be-in-another-state anticipated passing of the Knicks floats in front of St. Paul’s Chapel, what diverted my attention long enough to actually MISS seeing the celebrity Knicks, was tracking a soaring Red-tailed Hawk through the downtown canyons. What might that hawk have been thinking about the commotion below while gliding over his rooftop domain?

Who knew there was a summer rave called the Jet Ski Invasion? Last year, I happened upon it by chance from the deck of the Staten Island Ferry. This year, I raced down to the South Street Seaport, on purpose, to see 1,000 jet skiers overtaking the East River from under the Brooklyn Bridge. A nonchalant Common Tern kept me company, intent on catching breakfast. Maybe all that ruckus in the harbor was chasing fish his way.

I’ll admit, during the beginning of July, I was obsessed with the Fourth of July Sail 250. I took every opportunity to cram in sightings of the international congregation of tall ships. July 1, the first entry on my dance card was a day trip to Yonkers to tour the Oosterschelde, the 1918 last remaining topsail schooner from The Netherlands. On the way up the Hudson on Metro-North, of course I was looking for birds the whole time. I was amply rewarded with a family of Ravens exchanging banter on an electric pole, two Great Blue Herons racing the train upriver, and a Bald Eagle devouring a fish on a snag.

Idiotically, July 2, on what would be the first day of an historic 100° heat wave, a siren’s song lured me to Brooklyn Bridge Park to take a gander at the early arrival of the Elissa, a three-masted 1877 beauty from Galveston, Texas. A wiser Canada Goose gander and his clan chose bathing in the river to cool off rather than traipsing over boiling sidewalks. While I was seeking shade, Gray Catbirds seemed to be mewing everywhere undaunted by the sweltering heat.

July 3, a host of the tall ships were staging off Sandy Hook, and I boarded the Seastreak to Highlands, NJ to catch a leisurely sight of them. Colossal and heroic up close, from a distance, the ships look surprisingly delicate and vulnerable. Anchored together like that, I was reminded of the seemingly romanticized maritime oil paintings I’ve pored over in museums. That’s what sailing ships really look like! Common Terns and Laughing Gulls plied the wake of our speeding boat. An Osprey passed over the masts of the imposing U.S. Coast Guard Eagle. On the way home, masses of Double-crested Cormorants fished near Hoffman and Swinburne Islands with the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge arching across the toy NYC skyline at the horizon.

For the Big Day, July 4, I had booked a spot on the American Princess whale watching boat out of Sheepshead Bay for a marathon of the Tall Ships Parade in the morning and the fireworks spectacular in the evening. All day I was keeping an eye out for some rarer birds that had been spotted recently in the New York Bight — Shearwaters, Willson’s Storm Petrels, Brown Pelicans — as well as noting our constant accompaniment by terns, gulls, and cormorants. A fleeting pod of dolphins filled the cetacean checkbox for the day. Catch me with a martini sometime to gush about the panoply of ships, fireworks, and unscripted lightning show.

Naturally, despite a rainy-day July 6, I made a pilgrimage to Pier 86 for a chance to loll about on “the most beautiful ship in the world,” the Italian Amerigo Vespucci, and headed further north to Pier 92 for that cornucopia of tall ship riches including touring the imposing ARA Libertad from Argentina. This is what New York harbor must have looked like in its early centuries — though grittier and not crammed with tourists in shorts. On July 8, I packed lunch and hung out at the tip of Pier 45 in Hudson River Park to bid final farewell to all the ships heading out to Boston and beyond. I think I spotted a young Bald Eagle winging its way west over Hoboken.

 If it stays clear tonight, I’ll pop up to 42nd Street for the final Manhattanhenge party of 2026. Maybe a midtown Peregrine Falcon will join the celestial festivities. Wherever you go, may the birds be with you.