Best Bird of the Weekend (Fourth of January 2010)
By Corey • January 25, 2010 • 10 commentsDid you have a nice weekend? Did you enjoy watching the Jets and Colts, Vikings and Saints? Looking forward to the Super Bowl showdown between the Saints and Colts? Well, slow down for a second and tell us what your best bird of the weekend was.
Of we three 10,000 Birds bloggers Mike undoubtedly had the best bird of the weekend because he spent the weekend birding in Ecuador, but we don’t know what that bird is because he is still there. Let’s all pretend not to be jealous in the comments when we’re sharing our best birds (though I will say that Charlie and I were considering changing the passwords on the blog while he was gone…that’d show him!).
I got very little birding done this weekend, though a short walk around Jamaica Bay’s West Pond with Daisy and Desi and my visiting parents rewarded me with a Barrow’s Goldeneye, a pretty good bird in the eastern United States!
Charlie stuck close to home as well but managed to tally a Northern Raven at Great Chalfield, the first one he has recorded there.
What was your best bird of the weekend? Tell us about the rarest, loveliest, or most fascinating bird you observed in the comments section. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, we invite you to include the link in your comment.
Tags: best bird, weekend
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Hi there,
Here in Hong Kong winter weather is turning to spring in the usual fits-and-starts as Lunar New Year approaches.
Our birding weekend started with a bang on Friday evening, with Lesser Frigatebird and Relict Gull on the Deep Bay tideline. Blog post here: http://johnjemi.blogspot.com/
Regards from tropical south China
John H.
I turned up two adult Whooping Cranes by Lake Kissimmee, Florida, which comprised 0.57% of the total world adult population of the species, by my calculations. I also saw about 8 Snail Kites, so that was a close runner-up.
I kept track of the birds in my backyard over the weekend and came up with 19 species: http://birdstack.com/people/thainamu/lists/4968.html (I live in suburban Dallas). Already this Monday morning I saw a 20th.
The “best” bird was the flock of Cedar Waxwings and the most unusual was the orange variant House Finch–first time I’d ever seen one.
On Saturday morning within the city limits of Corpus Christi Texas my friend and I saw flocks of Great Kiskadee in two separate places calling and diving for insects near the Nueses River. It appeared that they are gathering for the nesting process.
On the way up the Thruway between Saugerties and Albany on Saturday there were, I swear, dozens of hawks sitting in the trees, one every couple of miles. Since my raptor identification skills are somewhat(!) lacking, I’d be guessing at what they were. Red tail? Red Shoulder? Still, they were a sight to behold.
@Aunt Bonnie: Though Central America has a species called Roadside Hawk, the Red-tailed Hawk, which is what you are seeing, certainly deserves the name too…
I finally saw an owl in the Hunter Island Pine Grove in Pelham Bay Park after at least 7 tries. It was a very spherical saw-whet. My somewhat poor photo is here: http://www.birdersflightlog.blogspot.com
The American Pipit at Prospect Park. The more I looked at it, the more interesting it got.
Dot-backed Antbird, seen decently well for almost a minute, on my last day at Sacha Lodge in Ecuador.
Iceland Gull at the Adam Beck Generating Station overlook was the best for me. Nice to get it so early in the year.
http://talesofthenishiki.blogspot.com/2010/01/river-birding-hot-chocolate-for-haiti.html