April is here, carrying with it the first waves of birds you may not have seen in a while. Even if you were fooled by some improbable reports this weekend, you can expect real wonders all season long.
Corey spent all day on Saturday blitzing across Queens with Carrie Laben and it was a wildly successful day with 87 species spotted including a Great Horned Owl that seemed not to know that owls are supposed to be hidden away during the day, fifteen Wilson’s Snipe (a new high count for Queens), and a Piping Plover. But the Best Bird of the Weekend was another bird that seemed not to know that it was supposed to be hidden away from view, an American Bittern that had no problem sitting out in the open at Baisley Pond Park, only the seventh Corey has ever seen in his home borough. As for me, I’m just glad Turkey Vultures are back to Western NY.
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.
Well, if it wasn’t for the osprey that flew over an abandoned quarry near Heidelberg on Saturday, I’d have to go with Black Woodpecker yet again – but not this time, osprey it is. A rather rare migrant in Germany’s SW.
While certainly not a rarity, I have to go with the Tri-colored Heron that walked right up the beach over the weekend while I was giving a seminar on Shore Birds Of La Paz. I was not able to get out to see anything else.
I was doing the Seattle Audubon Seabird Survey and we saw Black-bellied Plovers, Common Loons, and Horned Grebes in their spectacular breeding plumage. That means they’ll leave us soon to head north.
Four Aztec Thrushes beat out even the Chestnut-sided Shrike-Vireos of Pino Real, Michoacán, México!