Thanks for visiting Feathered Focus!

Hey everyone! Thanks for visiting Feathered Focus. So, who am I and what is this blog all about? My name is Tony, and I’ve been birding for about 4 years now. Growing up in Ohio, I always loved being outside. From fishing with my dad wading sometimes miles upstream to the right spot, to just going out in the woods exploring, I loved being immersed in nature! I grew up, moved to the big city of New York, went to art school, and almost lost touch with nature completely. Thanks in part to a job I scored in Central Park, I got back in touch with the outdoors. I had always loved nature, as I said, and I thought I knew my birds. Not long after starting work in Central Park, I was assigned to be the park representative in the joint bird walks, along with a representative from NYC Audubon. My job was to answer park questions, while the Audubon guide handled the bird stuff. That’s when I saw for the first time just how many different species of birds there were! How different (or in some cases not different) they all were from each other. I was fascinated and amazed. Not just at the number of species that visited one park in NYC, but how I never noticed them all before. I decided to join eBird just to see how many species I could see.

Now, years later, birding is something I make time for. Sometimes it’s a full day trip, other times it’s for an hour before work. Oh, and after taking pictures via my phone and binocular hookup for a year, I finally invested a camera and slowly turned my Instagram into almost all bird pics. Eventually, I was leading the birding walks in Central Park all on my own. I got to know a lot of the NYC birders, and was even fortunate enough to spot some rare birds, and turn other birders onto their presence. I loved telling people about the birds. Recently, I made the journey west to St. Louis, and have been exploring all the birds here.

So that’s a bit about me, but what about this blog? I had the idea to do a blog, so I can continue to teach and tell people, now a much broader audience, about the birds I’ve seen. Each post will profile a different bird from my life list. I’ll include some ID tips I’ve picked up, a little about the species, as well as some stories and anecdotes about my experience spotting (or trying to spot) the bird. And I’ll supplement the posts with photos of that species that I took!

So, that’s the rundown. I hope you all come back, and read from time to time, if not subscribe! Also, please feel free to check me out on Instagram

 

Above, a Common Grackle and a Little Blue Heron taken in Easthampton, NY and St. Louis, MO respectively