The Quaker Pond Trail at Mendon Ponds Park is a 2.7-mile loop that circles a large marshy area and pond. We may pick up lingering migrants, but we’ll be especially on the alert for local nesting birds setting up territories.

Woods and meadow provide great habitat for nesting species such as Indigo Bunting, Eastern Towhee, Blue-winged Warbler and Field Sparrow. We’ll walk a trail that circulates through forest and field, looking for breeding birds.

This is it – the biggest bird race in upstate New York! Organized by the Friends of the Montezuma Wetlands Complex, the Muckrace is a 24-hour birding competition in which teams try to see as many species of birds as possible on the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge.

If you’ve been to the Lilac Festival, then you’ve been to Highland Park. Is it a little weird here to bird in September? Maybe – but someone has to do it, and this will be a nice relaxing trip after the craziness of the Muckrace the weekend before.

We’ll start by searching LaSalles Landing Park and the south end of Irondequoit Bay for waterfowl, gulls, and possible lingering shorebirds.

We’ll start by taking a walk through Durand Eastman Park. We’ll likely see a mix of winter passerines like woodpeckers, robins, chickadees, titmice, Cedar Waxwings, finches and cardinals, but with a little luck they’ll be supplemented by something special.

For 119 years, adults have counted birds every winter as part of the annual Christmas Bird Count, and now it’s time for kids to join the fun! The Christmas Bird Count for Kids is a family-friendly bird-watching event that builds bird identification skills and contributes to scientific bird count data.

Participating in a Christmas Bird Count is an annual tradition for many birders, and this will be the 116th CBC in Rochester. In a Christmas Bird Count, birders try to count as many birds as possible within a particular “count circle.”