It was New York City or bust for us last week when we did a whirlwind road trip to Manhattan for an overnight to pick up our son who lives there along with his girlfriend and two cats. We arrived in time for a late-ish (by Maine standards, less so for New York!) dinner and then stroll about his Midtown neighborhood to enjoy the holiday lights shimmering in a lightly falling snow. The next day it was brunch, a little sight-seeing, then back in the (now rather cramped) car amid the cries of protesting kitties.

But not before a little—very little—birding, of sorts.

We’ve written before about incidental birding in Manhattan  (https://www.boothbayregister.com/article/maine-big-apple/187582) while visiting our son. On this trip, we didn’t have as much time to keep our eyes open for birds. And by morning, the weather had turned decidedly freezing and windy. Suffice to say our bird observations were limited.

Still, as we waited to cross busy E 34th Street and Lexington Avenue to Utopia Bagels, we heard the distinct squeals of American robins. Looking up we saw a flock descending across the steep face of a high rise near Yeshiva University as if they were soaring through a modern, human-made canyon. Perhaps they had just arrived with the cold front from points north, or maybe they had been in the city for awhile and were just moving from one set of fruiting shrubs to another. Either way, it brought us back to our experience on the Augusta Christmas Bird Count last weekend when a flock of robins, giving that same squealing call, floated down from high in the air to drop into our much quieter neighborhood.

It also made us remember the time, decades ago, when we participated in a Christmas Bird Count in New York City by covering a part of Central Park. That was memorable for many reasons including the fact that we passed then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan along one of the paths.

On this recent trip, after getting our famously delicious bagels, we faced into a cold, tear-inducing wind that whooshed down the streets while we made our way up toward the Empire State Building, Macy’s, and Herald Square.  Of course, there were loads of rock pigeons and house sparrows on the way. At Herald Square itself, there were some kind of trees with small fruits on them that were filled with European starlings.

Those were all species that we got on our own Augusta area Christmas Bird Count, too.

Macy’s was spectacular with its holiday displays, as expected, and also as expected, the crowds of people admiring them were pretty spectacular, too. Herald Square was a hub of vendors selling all sort sorts of holiday-themed wares, along with the usual unofficial vendors on the sidewalks with blankets spread with knock-offs of expensive purses and other merchandise.

We had just passed one such display when we heard, from a little clump of bushes nearby, the unmistakable “seet” call of a white-throated sparrow. We couldn’t see it, but it was difficult to imagine this bird that might have spent the summer in some remote northern forest in Maine or Quebec, was now making a living amid the incredible hustle and bustle of Manhattan. But the truth is, it’s a species that regularly winters in New York City, although places like Central Park probably are the spots you would imagine are more favorable to them than Herald Square.

It's always amazing to us how birds can make you feel connected to places near and far, familiar and unfamiliar. The day after we got back to Maine, there under our backyard bird feeder was our own wintering white-throated sparrow. What’s that old expression “Home is where the sparrow is?”

Jeffrey V. Wells, Ph.D., is a Fellow of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Vice President of Boreal Conservation for National Audubon. Dr. Wells is one of the nation's leading bird experts and conservation biologists. He is a coauthor of the seminal “Birds of Maine” book and author of the “Birder’s Conservation Handbook.” His grandfather, the late John Chase, was a columnist for the Boothbay Register for many years. Allison Childs Wells, formerly of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is a senior director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine, a nonprofit membership organization working statewide to protect the nature of Maine. Both are widely published natural history writers and are the authors of the popular books, “Maine’s Favorite Birds” (Tilbury House) and “Birds of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao: A Site and Field Guide,” (Cornell University Press).