Birding

Best Bird of the Weekend (Fourth of February 2014)

February 24, 2014 by Mike 2 Comments

As much as I love hearing about and sharing Best Birds of the Weekend, sometimes I have cause to ponder just what that term means. Obviously, the birds themselves are not jockeying for recognition. Rather, we designate best birds according to our priorities and perceptions of value. The Feral Pigeon has many virtues to admire, but who is going to brag about encountering one of those? BBOTW speaks volumes about birders, not birds.

These questions are foremost im my mind as I consider the best bird of my weekend here in Hong Kong. I met the Hong Kong Birdwatching Society in the Nam Chung area for their weekly outing. We saw a lot of great birds but only one truly rare one, a species that everyone on that trip will long remember. Unfortunately for me, that special species spotted in the bay separating Hong Kong from China was Red-breasted Merganser. I don’t want my Best Bird of the Weekend to be Red-breasted Merganser while I’m in Asia. I can spot that bird perfectly well at home! I can’t say the same for Gray Treepie, so let’s go with that.

Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend, on the other hand, was a relatively common diving duck in the Americas. He was pretty pleased with a small flock of very cooperative Redhead at World’s Fair Marina. One of those ravishing Redheads is pictured 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.

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.