How was your weekend? Enjoy Halloween, El Día de los Muertos, or All Souls’ Day? How about those birds? Tell us about your best bird.
My best bird of the weekend was a Black Scoter at Hamlin Beach State Park on Lake Ontario. Coincidentally, Corey was most pleased with his first-for-Queens Surf Scoter (bird number 240 for the borough), found fittingly in the surf off Breezy Point. Charlie failed to complete our scoter trifecta by spotting a White-winged or Velvet Scoter this weekend but does admit it’s nice to have Redwings and Fieldfares back for the winter
What was your best bird of the weekend? Tell us about the rarest, loveliest, or most interesting bird you observed in the comments section. Plus, if you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, I invite you to include the link in your comment. Once you’re done commenting here, you may want to weigh in on our cordial contemplation of the question, “Can Creationists Be Birders?”
Inquiring Red-tailed Hawks Want to Know…
My wife and I were looking at a house this weekend and a Ruffed Grouse walked up onto the back patio! Sure was a big point for the house!
I saw my first Cedar Waxwings of the season, finally closing the book on expected winter arrivals. So I’m ready for spring now…
@Nate: Come on, where’s your hope for Snowy Owl or Northern Shrike or Red Crossbill?
Seriously Nate a Cedar Waxwing?
Didn’t get out birding this weekend, but currently on my way to take a long lunch to follow up on a Snowy Owl report…
Yup, it was the last “winter” bird I hadn’t seen. And as my prospects for much travel look to be slim this winter, I’ll likely see nothing new till March brings the Yellow-throated Warblers back.
But a NC Snowy Owl would be something, alright. It’s about as long a shot as there is, but I’d probably go after that.
I led my “Birding for Beginners” walk on a really dead day at Sandy Hook. We had a perched Peregrine which got lots of “oohs” and “aahs.”
My best birds of the weekend were a group of ten (surely more) Roseate Spoonbills at the Aguadulce salinas, in coastal central Panama. Pink birds rules. I already posted three different entries about this last weekend that you may enjoy http://janbirdingblog.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html
Most of the world will yawn, but my best bird of the weekend was a first-basic Dunlin on the lower Santa Cruz River flats north of Tucson. It beat out Ferruginous and Harlan’s Hawks, Mountain Bluebird, and Sage Sparrow.
My best birds were two sandhill cranes that flew over the Hawkwatch in greenwich, CT. Some raptors were around too (including a bald eagle), but they couldn’t compete with the cranes.
@Rick: Those other birds sound pretty nice but I’m not hating on the Dunlin.
@Eamon C: I read about those cranes on the New York State listserv. We’re all confused becuase from Greenwich they should fly across NYS but no one seems to ever see them. It’s frustrating!
My Halloween bird was a black vulture–that seemed appropriate. I also saw my first winter wren at the bottom of a stack of firewood piled at the edge of the little woods behind my house.
I can’t exactly compete with the veteran birders here, but I’ve made it a goal for November to at least go to the little park at the end of the block every day. Yesterday, I got a good view of a Brown Creeper and my first Hermit Thrush ever! Not too bad for my little pocket of suburbia.