The weekend that just passed holds the singular distinction of being the longest of the year. If your proverbial neck of the woods observes Daylight Savings Time, you fell back to gain an extra hour. Did you make the most of it?
The best bird of my weekend was a ratty American Goldfinch scavenging the last of my coneflowers just before we cut the husks down for the season. Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was one of the many good birds he saw during the New York Birders Conference (which was a rousing success). At the Theodore Roosevelt Nature Center’s boardwalk through the dunes he was one of many birders pleased by pretty good views of a couple of Vesper Sparrows, one of which is shown above.
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.
Probably the aggressive Tui. I heard a Shining Cuckoo but couldn’t find it.
My best bird was a Red-backed shrike which I was pleased to find in my yard yesterday morning.
More about it here:
Birding in Zambia: http://birdnerdafrica.wordpress.com/
Boreal Chickadee — a lifer. The looks could have been better (OK, a *lot* better) but they were flocking with BBCHs so I could contrast the calls.
Best resident species was Great Green Macaw- a trio that flew over an just outside of Braulio Carillo National Park, Costa Rica.
The following day, while guiding near Varablanca, Costa Rica, best migrant was a Townsend’s Warbler- rare winter resident in Costa Rica and my year bird # 640.
Probably my last Brown Creeper of the year, doing its thing on a distant tree in Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago. They’re so cute and always fun to watch.
A Merlin that flew just a few feet over my head while I was counting seabirds for Seattle Audubon’s Seabird Survey.
American Tree Sparrow at Point Reyes Station, CA, was only the 4th I’ve ever seen!