Bird City: Adventures in New York’s Urban Wilds by Brooklyn-based journalist Ryan Goldberg features a detailed look inside the hobby of birding, and how New York City itself is shaped by its birds and the people dedicated to documenting them.
“I started birdwatching in 2016 in New York and started to see a side of the city that I didn’t know existed before,” Goldberg said. “Not just an incredible diversity of birds, wildlife and wild places, but some real New York characters too.”
Goldberg was first introduced to birding by an aunt while visiting family in New Jersey, after she asked if he wanted to watch birds with her in a park by his parents’ house.
“It was incredible, going to this place that I thought I was familiar with, and realizing that this park I thought I knew, I hadn’t really explored,” he said. He then discovered the Brooklyn Bird Club, founded in 1909, after searching where he could bird from his home in Brooklyn. From there, he was hooked, calling birding his “ticket to explore,” the city and its wildlife.
The book’s four sections represent the seasons within the year, taking the reader through the urban avian wildlife of New York City, where the setting ranges from landmarks like Prospect Park to uninhabited islands in the Rockaways. Throughout, he shapes the city’s seasons through different birds he spots, detailing their species, rarity and characteristics.
By reframing the city’s image through the perspective of a birder, Goldberg provides details about New York and its environment that might have gone unnoticed, such as the coastal meadow near the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. For others, the start of spring is ushered in by blooming flowers. But as Goldberg notes: “For me, spring hasn’t started until I’ve seen a pine warbler.”
He learns that millions of birds migrate through the city each year—more than 400 different species have been found in New York, many more than in Yellowstone National Park.
The author also introduces the people he meets along the way.
“By knowing them, I realized, I want to write a book so I can write about these people,” said Goldberg.
This includes Doug Gochfeld, a professional birding guide with a record of finding rare birds in the city (including the gray kingbird, which was last spotted in Brooklyn in 1930), and Peter Dorosh, the president of the Brooklyn Bird Club. Birding becomes an avenue to get to know the characters in Goldberg’s writing, the book becoming a log of both birds and people.
Bird City documents the unique individuals that Goldberg encountered, and how, in a big city, it can be easy to experience isolation.
“For those who are interested in trying out birding and don’t know where to start, there’s so many great clubs in the city,” said Goldberg, who also mentioned groups like Feminist Bird Club and the Linnaean Society of New York. “There’s all these built-in avenues for mentorship, friendship and community.”
