Corey Finger

…is an upstate New York native, hailing from the the small town of Saugerties, which is nestled nicely between the mighty Hudson River and the scenic Catskill Mountains.

Currently Corey resides in Queens, the best of all the five boroughs of New York City. He lives with the love of his life, Daisy, whom he met after an Experimental Media Organization meeting while at college at SUNY-Binghamton way back in 1998, his mother-in-law, who is somewhat befuddled by Corey’s obsession with birds, and his young son, Desmond, who is fortunate enough to have Shearwater as a middle name.

Corey came late to the world of birding, discovering his passion for birds when a Green Heron showed itself to him and Daisy. Since the trigger bird (which was seen in May 2005) Corey has been on a high-speed course from bird to bird, garnering an impressive (for a beginner) 316 birds in a New York State Big Year in 2007 and generally birding every chance he gets.

Because of simple geography most of Corey’s birding has taken place in New York State and the northeastern United States in general, though near-yearly trips to southern California and Florida have allowed him to add many cool birds to his life list. He looks forward to eventually birding in every state in the nation!

A trip to Germany in October 2007 led Corey to the revelation that there are even more birds on other continents and since that trip he has visited and birded Ecuador (where he saw his 1,000th bird species), Honduras, Hungary, Austria, Costa Rica, Lichtenstein, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Belize, Switzerland, Uganda, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and Kazakhstan!

When he’s not birding, which isn’t often, Corey works as a union organizer and representative, reads, blogs, wanders around New York City, gets angry about politics, and spends time with his family. He’s also written the ABA Field Guide to Birds of New York.

Corey’s entire archive on 10,000 Birds is accessible here.

Corey’s Bird Lists