Birding is like a video game. I will often use this analogy when detailing my adventures to friends who are familiar with video games, but maybe not so familiar with birding. I’ll tell them: “it’s like a real-life sidequest!” “I saw a new bird for my Pokedex!” “Equipping binoculars unlocks crazy new NPC interactions!” (It’s worth noting that I’ve yet to win anybody over to the dark side in this manner.)

This comparison felt particularly pertinent on my recent excursion to a small plaza in Midtown, where I hoped to glimpse the Yellow-breasted Chat that had been hanging out for a few days. Verizon Plaza, the location in question, is about 200 steps away from Bryant Park– odd that any bird would choose it over the much more amenable alternative right there. At the time of my visit, other winners like a Dickcissel and a Virginia Rail had been spotted in the same plaza, so perhaps there is just something about the place making it an attractive stopover sight.

Remember Pokemon Go? Sometimes, I will tell people that birding is like Pokemon Go in real life. You’re walking to real locations, looking to “capture” (see and maybe snap a picture of) colorful little creatures, and likely sharing that experience with other people who may or may not be strangers. This isn’t just my devious marketing scheme to try and turn all my friends into birdwatchers– I say it because it’s true! Never has this been more true than that day in Verizon Plaza with the Yellow-Breasted Chat. To the general observer– a salaryperson enjoying some Shake Shack at the end of their 9 to 5– I probably looked pretty odd with my binoculars and backpack. But, it didn’t take long before I found some fellow players of the game, easily distinguished by their own binoculars and cameras with ridiculous lenses.

I pretty much never get to know my strange fellow birders particularly well. I rarely ever even get their names. In that moment of tracking down a bird though, I feel perhaps the strongest kinship I ever have with my fellow New Yorkers. I’ll usually approach with some tacky line like “I think we’re here for the same bird”, at which point most folks are willing to offer up their most recent knowledge on the status of our mutual quarry. On this day, I found several people staking out a single holly bush in the corner of the plaza– the chat had been enjoying the berries there earlier in the day. One of the women present had a City Parks badge, and gladly offered reinforcements– she ran Bryant Park’s regularly scheduled birding tour, and, in a rare break from protocol, would bring the group over to the plaza in hopes of showing them the rare visitor.

With such a small area to cover, you would think that finding a bird with a bright yellow belly would be like shooting fish in a barrel. It became clear to us quickly that this was not going to be the case. The Yellow-breasted Chat, which was once grouped taxonomically with the warblers but is now considered one of forty or so monotypic bird species in its own family, is famously sulky in its behavior and often hides low in bushes for long periods of time. Thus, this became a game of pacing around the plaza’s several hedge plantings, scrutinizing each bush closely, and occasionally peering down for a closer look whenever there was a flash of movement. At one point, a person started waving and shouting, and I as well as all the other bird people began to converge on their location– false alarm! They were just flagging a friend down for unrelated reasons. Each new birder who joined the fray wordlessly understood the assignment, and set out on patrol. Some chose another technique, and sat, camera at the ready, staking out a particular tree or bush where the chat had been spotted previously.

A few other birds of mild interest made appearances during the search. A house wren and a swamp sparrow made appearances. At least three common yellowthroats were also making the rounds during the search– a particularly amusing decoy, given that the target also had a yellow throat.

The hunt went on. After 35 minutes– more time than I had budgeted in my day for this endeavor– I was starting to think the whole thing may be a bust. Then, reinforcements arrived. Our hero from Bryant Park returned with 20 or so fresh, eager searchers in tow. Maybe it was a numbers game, or maybe it was because they came in with fresh eyes, but… the Bryant Park group made quick work of the search. As the group crouched down to thoroughly assess every branch of a bush on the south end of the plaza, one woman sounded the alarm– “I have it!” There were a few moments of disbelief. Was this just one of the yellowthroats? People of all walks of life, myself included among their ranks, got on their hands and knees and contorted themselves into positions that chiropractors certainly would not approve of for the chance at a fleeting glance at this weird little bird. 

In the confusion of those early minutes, I was one of the first people to get a fortuitous glimpse of that flash of yellow hopping from twig to twig. That would technically be enough for the life list, but was it enough for my own satisfaction? Probably not. At this point I stepped back to let everyone have their turn– now that we found it, I figured we wouldn’t be losing it again. After maybe 15 minutes of strenuous bush peering, the chat emerged! It flushed out and perched in a tree on the north end of the plaza for a few minutes, before ducking into a different bush over on that side of the plaza. While it was in the tree, I got a much better look as well as a binocular photo! It’s no masterpiece, but it’s a nice memento of my hunt all the same. While it skulked in the new bush, still in view, I enjoyed the moment with some fellow birders (and other passers by!) before moving on, satisfied with my shared discovery.

In retrospect, I feel a little bad about the way the group probably disturbed the chat to cause it to flush out of its bush. Of course, we can never actually get into the mind of a bird, but the hubbub that the crowd of maybe thirty people around that bush caused would have been enough to disturb me if I was a little creature sleeping inside that bush. Resources were limited in that plaza, and the little fella may have been living on the edge of what his resources allowed before being stressed out by observers. There is a fine line to be drawn between harmless, exciting educational experiences in nature and that same fervor causing unintentional harm– something many birders, including myself, could stand to be more conscientious of.

Given that it stayed in such a small area surrounded by buildings for days, the bird might have been stuck there, unsure of how to navigate the skyscrapers around it to continue its southbound journey. Even before finding itself in the plaza, it may have been a little lost– New York City is a fair distance north of the northern edge of the bird’s typical breeding range (though in a warming world, this is likely in flux). The chat was gone from the plaza a couple of days after my visit. Hopefully, it found its way down to its winter home somewhere in Central America, despite the potentially unwanted paparazzi it endured on the trip. It might be reassuring to hear that another Yellow-breasted Chat stopped in this spot on its migration in 2021. Is there something about Verizon Plaza that just does it for them? Was this the same bird making the same stop on its journey? The mysteries only add to the allure. Maybe our new Chat friend will return next year, and we can apologize to it for the rude awakening we gave it on an October evening the year prior.