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This is a Dark-eyed Junco in Union Square Park a few days after 10 inches of snow fell in the city in December, 2020.  

I liked the bicolor nature of the bird’s field markings in the snow and used it to represent the winter solstice that happened just a few days after this photo was taken. It has been a strange year for people, but the natural world has followed its usual rhythm and the days will become longer while the nights get shorter in our northern hemisphere. 

This park has been a reliable place to see a nice variety of birds. So far I have logged 59 species in that small area and I hope to add more to the list in 2021.

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This is a Barred Owl nicknamed Barry by observers in Central Park. It was noticed in October, 2020 and lingered for several weeks, at times in locations that were fairly busy with parkgoers. It got media attention and when I walked in the areas where it tended to roost people would notice my camera and ask if I had seen it. Another Barred Owl was later seen in Riverside Park not far away, and eventually the two were also seen together.

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The cheering that erupted in New York City on November 7, 2020 when the presidential election was finally called was tremendous. It was a moment of great joy after days of tense waiting. Horns honked, people clapped, music was put on and dancing ensued. By that afternoon in Washington Square Park multiple corks were popping and champaign showered. The lines for liquor stores and ice cream stands went on for blocks.

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One of our leaf peeping trips hit peak foliage in the Catskills. And this mostly sunny day in October, 2020 at Alder Lake was a great example of it.

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We embraced road trips in this era of restricted air travel. And upstate New York, especially New Paltz, have always held a special place in our hearts. On this getaway we explored some new locations, including the Nyquist-Harcourt Wildlife Sanctuary. This shot of a White-breasted nuthatch in the golden hour made me very happy.

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A Great Black-backed gull rages against the surf at Cupsogue Beach County Park in August 2020. We discovered, to our dismay, that county parks in New York State were posting signs (and rules!) to deny entry to state residents who don’t reside in the county. Just a great example of rules meant to be broken.

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On July 18, 2020 I undertook a bike ride to the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge from near Washington Square Park, more than an hour and a half of a schlepp, with the long lens on my back. This Yellow-crowned Night-heron comes in for a landing making it all worthwhile.

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Manhattanhenge, when the setting sun aligns with the city’s cross streets, happens twice in the summer. On the first instance, at the end of May, the George Floyd demonstrations started in our neighborhood. By the time of the second one, in mid-June, they were a regular occurrence, most nights and all weekends. 

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I took this photo with my phone on Sunday, April 19, 2020, while riding by on a bicycle, hence the blurry image. This was almost a month after returning to NYC on the eve of our local lockdown, it was the height of the pandemic with tents for a mobile field unit set up in another part of the park further north. There were refrigerated trailers set up outside of hospitals, including in our neighborhood, as temporary morgues. 

While Central Park was a place of solace and refuge in a time of uncertainty, there was also a certain amount of tension. Those times when you walked along a path, only to have an entire family not wearing masks walk right past you five abreast so you couldn’t even properly distance from them. For those of us who had the leisure and ability to get outdoors it was a balm. For many who had no other choice but to work indoors in close proximity to others, it was a nightmare, or even worse, a death sentence.

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While our mid-March timing was a bit early, we were lucky enough to once again have the opportunity to experience the sakura or cherry blossom season in Japan. We spent a lot of time in parks that were likely to have early blossoms. Remarkably, though he had just cut our time in Malaysia short by three days due to a COVID lockdown, in Tokyo things seemed nearly normal. There was widespread mask use, but bars and restaurants were open. The hotel was fairly empty and the usual crowds that would be eating and drinking in the parks under the blossoms were absent. But on the day of a national spring holiday the cemeteries did fill with families paying respects to their ancestors and a trendy shopping area was quite busy. This Brown-eared bulbul in Shinjuku Gyoen has a bill caked with pollen from the blossoms it was busy tumbling around in.

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In March, 2020 we made our second visit to the Rainforest Discovery Centre in the Malaysian part of the island of Borneo. It’s a remarkable place and so full of birds. The canopy walkways, viewing towers and trails are wonderful with plenty of informative signs. I had just paused along the walkway to look at a sign with a picture of a Red-naped trogon, when I looked up to see one sitting on a branch just a few feet away from me.

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In February 2020 we made our usual trip to California. It was the first time that birding was a bigger focus and I completed 10 eBird checklists in our time there. Sadly I had forgotten my field glasses! So I put the zoom lens to good use. I spotted this Great blue heron as soon as I arrived at Crissy Field in San Francisco making its way over the lawn in front of the cityscape. Behind me was the view more typically photographed in this location - the Golden Gate Bridge.

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For our year-end trip in 2019 we settled on Mérida in the Yucatán peninsula of Mexico. It was a place we had both visited, but not in quite a while (in my case it had been 3 decades), and we had fond memories. Time to make some new ones. 

We had an excellent visit and stayed off of the Paseo Montejo, a glamorous thoroughfare with glorious old mansions, some of them rejuvenated, and some of them waiting to be restored. It has one of the largest historic districts in the Americas after Mexico City and Havana. 

In it’s heyday there was a lot of money coming in for the landowners from the production of henequen, a plant used to make rope and twine. In fact at one point it had the highest concentration of millionaires of any city in the world. Looking at some of the remaining structures, and visiting some of the grand haciendas in the surrounding area, you can readily believe this. 

It is also a city that is 60% Maya and you see that as a tourist especially in the cuisine. At our very first meal we were served Sikil P’aak, a creamy, smoky, thick pumpkin seed sauce/dip that you can eat with fresh tortilla chips. We had it in many different variations, from quite creamy to so thick it came in a mold like pate, all of them delicious in their own way. 

The town is very walkable, friendly and safe with markets to visit, museums to wander through and interesting architecture in many directions. We had day trip excursions planned, so we didn’t even cover much of the town in the day and a half that we had there. For that reason we intend to go back for a reprise.

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A beautiful Wood duck on the water in Central Park is one of many duck species I photographed this fall. I am looking forward to more bird photography in the new year, in the meantime you can check out other pics at https://www.instagram.com/ridavio/  Have a fantastic 2020 and I resolve to post photos here more often.

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This was on our second visit to the Berkshires this year when I had the opportunity to try a new circular polarizing filter for my leaf-peeping photos.

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My first visit to the recently opened Vessel in Hudson Yards. Most recently it was in the news for ADA-noncompliance.

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My first ticker tape parade in the Canyon of Heroes happened when our first place world cup women’s team returned in glory. It was a happy day for many of us because of them.