Alex Tey

New York

Contributor at Freelance

trans journalist, birder, etc. words in @audubonsociety, @HellGateNY, @Slate, @Curbed, @nytimes

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Articles

10 Fun Facts About the Ruby-throated Hummingbird

2 weeks ago | audubon.org | Alex Tey

Meet the spirited sprites whose feats are as dazzling as their feathers By Alex Tey Reporter, Audubon Magazine “Hummingbirds hardly need a description,” the renowned bird illustrator and naturalist Roger Tory Peterson once wrote of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Yet we can’t resist describing them anyway.
Toward Birds, for Whom?

1 month ago | rarebird.substack.com | Alex Tey

Taylor, Lili. Turning to Birds: The Power and Beauty of Noticing. New York: Crown, 2025. About 15 years ago, she writes in Turning to Birds, the actor Lili Taylor “started to sense birds in a deeper way.” She retreated from her Brooklyn apartment to her second home in upstate New York during a career break and found that birds unlocked a broader, deeper perception of the world.
Why Is Everyone Obsessed With the ‘Awebo’ Bird?

1 month ago | audubon.org | Alex Tey

For most of the year, the Willow Ptarmigan lays low on the Arctic tundra, blending into the snowy landscape with its powder-white plumage. But as winter turns toward spring, the males begin to stake out territories and make their presence known.
For Reasons Known Only to Itself

Feb 26, 2025 | rarebird.substack.com | Alex Tey

This complex of buildings on the Brooklyn waterfront—officially the Sunset Park Material Recovery Facility—is New York City’s main recycling plant and one of the largest in North America. This bird of prey—a Swainson’s Hawk, though up for renaming in the near future—is a species renowned for raptorial elegance and majestic migration. Every year, nearly all of these graceful grassland hunters fly from the North American prairies to southern Argentina and back.
It’s One of RFK Jr.’s Favorite Things. It Could Cause the Next Pandemic.

Dec 4, 2024 | slate.com | Alex Tey

Science Bird flu just might have found a direct route toward infecting more humans. Health officials in California announced last week that they had found fragments of the H5N1 avian influenza virus in a retail sample of raw milk. The immediate risk posed by the bird flu virus’s presence in raw milk is limited to individual consumers who drink the stuff.
How a “Health” Fad Could Spell Disaster for Us All

Dec 4, 2024 | yahoo.com | Alex Tey

Bird flu just might have found a direct route toward infecting more humans. Health officials in California announced last week that they had found fragments of the H5N1 avian influenza virus in a retail sample of raw milk. The immediate risk posed by the bird flu virus’s presence in raw milk is limited to individual consumers who drink the stuff. And it’s worth noting that we don’t know of anyone who has gotten bird flu from drinking raw milk or if its presence in the supply is widespread.
Seven sketches from iNaturalist

Nov 11, 2024 | rarebird.substack.com | Alex Tey

I’ve spent a decent amount of time identifying user-uploaded photos of North American birds on the community science website iNaturalist. Sometimes I come across observations that I save to my favorites because they show an interesting individual, behavior, or habitat. Here’s a selection of images that evoke a sense of a place in which I wish I could be, and some words about what they make me think about. July 20, 2007, 9:35 p.m.It’s cold up there in Nunavut, I imagine.
Bird Flu Is Our Fault

May 9, 2024 | nytimes.com | Alex Tey

We don't yet know if H5N1 bird flu will spill over from animals to infect a large number of humans. Based on the few cases of transmission so far, the World Health Organization has expressed concerns that infection in humans "can cause severe disease with a high mortality rate."But already it has wrought devastation upon so many lives.
Top NYU trustee calls for FBI action on protests

May 6, 2024 | nyunews.com | Alex Tey

NYU trustee and insurance billionaire William Berkley called for federal law enforcement to take action against pro-Palestinian student protesters on a Zoom call with the centrist group No Labels, the Intercept reported on Saturday. Berkley alleged that similarities between the tents used in encampments at different universities suggested an outside group had coordinated the demonstrations.
Where NYU Students Can (and Can’t) Protest on Campus

Apr 30, 2024 | curbed.com | Alex Tey

A boarded-up Gould Plaza at NYU as pro-Palestine students and activists continue to protest for divestment and the closure of NYU’s Tel Aviv program. When a group of NYU students discussed where to set up their Gaza protest encampment last week, they knew it had to be at Gould Plaza in front of the university’s business school on West 4th Street.