Summer, the season that we in the Northern Hemisphere are currently enjoying or suffering depending on your latitude and state of mind, is a time when birds often take a backseat to other diversions. But we naturalists notice them no matter what we’re doing. Aren’t we lucky?
The birds I admired most this weekend were Barn Swallows swooping over strawberry fields. Ever think about how Barn Swallows always look like they belong, even though they are seen pretty much everywhere in the world? Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was one of the two life birds he spotted up on Mount Baldy in southern California. It is not often that Corey has the privilege of taking a chair lift to go birding but that is what he did and he was rewarded with several mountain species, including the gorgeous Green-tailed Towhee above, which is his Best Bird of the Weekend, narrowly beating out Dusky Flycatcher.
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.
I heard a Little Spotted Kiwi from my house on Sunday morning before dawn, so I think that wins.
A fancy male red-winged blackbird was an unseasonable visitor to our backyard. Easily one of the most dramatically beautiful birds in the world.
Best birds during a long day near Carara in Costa Rica were Double-striped Thick-Knee, excellent, long lasting looks at a Collared Forest Falcon, and Scarlet Macaw (a given there but always amazing).
Pigeon Guillemots diving and flying on Port Townsend Bay. They are wonderful seabirds with their black and white feathers and bright red feet and mouths!
Magnolia Warbler, a male in breeding colours , in southern Ontario but somewhat off course. It was either a very late migrant or its navigation is faulty. It should be about 200 miles or more north of us in the boreal forests. The same day produced Pine, Chestnut-sided, Yellow, Black-throated Green Warblers too. More on these plus many others at http://www.mybirdoftheday.ca
During a *very* early morning run along the Chicago coast, I spotted some kind of merganser in the shallows along North Avenue beach. Can’t narrow down the variety (I wasn’t uber-close, it was still pretty dark, and I was under the gun with miles left to go), but I’m positive of its merganser-ness. (A recent discussion on our local bird list confirms that they do pop up in this area during the summer. So I’m pretty sure I wasn’t just dressing up a Mallard in my mind.)
My best bird of the weekend was a lifer White-throated Dipper at the Fahl Waterfall located in the southern Black Forest, Germany.
I saw a great blue heron. It was far away, so I didn’t get that good a look, but there’s really only one bird that looks like a great blue heron, here, so I didn’t doubt my identification. I’ve seen them before, but I’m always pleased with a sighting.