Birding in the New York Times

From Sunday's paper, an article by Jonathan Rosen about a Scott's Oriole in Union Square Park in New York City:

Like the greenmarket in Union Square that brings apples and vegetables from outside the city, the token bird in the park is a reminder of an older way of life we are still intimately connected to and vitally in need of.

And like birders with their binoculars, we are not necessarily doomed by our modernity to exclusion from wildness. Bird-watching was born in cities — combining technology, urban institutions of higher learning, an awareness of the vanishing wild places of the earth and a desire to welcome what is left of the wild back into our world.

How often do you bird in urban settings and find surprises?