If you read my weekly posts bookending the weekend birding experience, you know that I pay close attention to phenology. The way the ebb and flow of each season impacts out experience of the natural world must inform our efforts to observe avifauna if we want to optimize our experience. More simply put, pay attention to the time of year when you make birdwatching plans. I learned that the hard way this weekend when visiting an amazing migrant trap in the dead of summer: too many leaves, too many bugs, and hardly any birds. Ugh.

Based on my tale of woe, consider me lucky to have walked away with a couple of ratty Common Yellowthroats this weekend. Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend, on the other hand, was one of the many species of shorebird he during a weekend full of birding opportunities what with his whole family being in California. The American Avocet he found on Saturday at Cupsogue Beach County Park wasn’t the rarest bird for New York that he saw for the weekend (Lark Sparrow would win that contest) but it is a beauty of a bird and self-found birds always count for more.

How about you? What was your best bird of the weekend? Tell us in the comments section about the rarest, loveliest, or most fascinating bird you observed. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment.

Written by Mike
Mike is a leading authority in the field of standardized test preparation, but he's also a traveler who fully expects to see every bird in the world. Besides founding 10,000 Birds in 2003, Mike has also created a number of other entertaining but now extirpated nature blog resources, particularly the Nature Blog Network and I and the Bird.