CBH Talk: Birding New York — Migration, Community, and Conservation
Writer and birder Ryan Goldberg explores how New York City becomes a vital migratory corridor each spring, and what urban birding reveals about nature, community, and the city.
Why we picked this
Each spring, millions of migratory birds move through New York City — through Prospect Park, the Rockaways, even midtown rooftops. Goldberg's book makes the case that urban birding is as much about community and attention as it is about species lists.
Every spring, New York City becomes one of the most important migratory corridors on the East Coast. Millions of birds — warblers, thrushes, raptors, shorebirds — move through the city’s parks, cemeteries, shorelines, and rooftops, transforming ordinary urban spaces into sites of ecological drama. Writer and birder Ryan Goldberg, author of Bird City: Adventures in New York’s Urban Wilds, explores what this annual migration reveals about the city’s relationship with the natural world.
Goldberg’s book follows the birding community as much as the birds themselves — the veteran naturalists in Central Park at dawn, the young birders in Prospect Park, the community scientists documenting species across all five boroughs. His account argues that urban birding is not an eccentric hobby but a practice of attention that changes how people relate to the city they live in, and to the broader ecological systems of which it is a part.
This free evening at the Center for Brooklyn History is part of the CBH’s regular public programming. No background in birding required.