New York City, metropolis extraordinaire, not perhaps the first place that springs to mind when planning a birding trip! However, amongst the towering blocks and a population that packs in at 25,000 persons per square kilometre, the city has two major saving graces, stunning locations that offer just fantastic birding - Central Park in the heart of Manhattan and Jamaica Bay out beyond JFK airport. It was to these that I decided to focus my short break, a week of excellent birding in the ultimate of urban jungles, the third most populous urban area in the world.

Timing of the trip was crucial to its success - lying on the East Coast flyway, the city falls on a major migration route and, in an otherwise virtual sea of concrete, the 330 hectares of Central Park and almost 4000 hectares of Jamaica Bay act as crucial stopovers for tens of thousands of birds.  Jamaica Bay, famed especially for its waders, is at its best from late August to early September, whilst Central Park sees the annual warbler migration commencing from late August and building up to a peak about a month later.