O N C E  A R O U N D  T H E  B L O C K

A Birder’s Year in the West Village

Text and Photographs

Keith Michael

 

At the corner of West 4th and West 12th streets, that tourist-confounding intersection in New York City’s West Village, a rosy-breasted House Finch became Bird #1 on Keith Michael’s West Village List. This festively colored "sparrow" sparked a novice birder's curiosity to find out what other birds might be living in his neighborhood.

Chronicling a year of walks in the West Village, he found there was no dearth of birds to be watched. By New Year's Day 2013 the list had grown to 83 species, and comparing notes with other birder friends, more than 100 species have been catalogued within these few blocks of Manhattan.

With humor, in quest of the new bird, basking in the architectural sights to be seen, all the while cajoling his cute but irascible Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Millie, at the end of her leash, Mr. Michael is ever on the lookout for the goings on of the avian population along these streets nd beside the ever-humbling Hudson River.

Open your eyes, tune your ears, and take a walk - Once Around the Block.

 

Hardcover

162 pages

230 color photographs

Published July 21, 2013

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At the corner of West 4th and West 12th streets, that tourist-confounding intersection in New York City’s West?Village, a rosy-breasted House Finch became Bird #1 on Keith Michael’s West Village List. This festively colored "sparrow" sparked a novice birder's curiosity to find out what other birds might be living in his neighborhood.

 

 

Chronicling a year of walks in the West Village, he found there was no dearth of birds to be watched. By New Year's Day 2013 the list had grown to 83 species, and comparing notes with other birder friends, more than 100 species have been catalogued within these few blocks of Manhattan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the corner of West 4th and West 12th streets, that tourist-confounding intersection in New York City’s West Village, a rosy-breasted House Finch became Bird #1 on Keith Michael’s West Village List. This festively colored "sparrow" sparked a novice birder's curiosity to find out what other birds might be living in his neighborhood.