Birding

Best Bird of the Weekend (Last of 2020)

December 28, 2020 by Mike 5 Comments

2020 is almost over… finally. Rather than belabor the obvious, I’ll just point out that the global pandemic may have spawned a new wave of birders, but collectively we’ve seen far fewer species of birds. Responsible social distancing has savaged the travel and tourism industries, which means that all of our favorite birding lodges, vendors, and guides have suffered and continue to struggle as we enter 2021. Considering all that, I’m sure you’ll agree that a new year can’t come soon enough!

As I’m not traveling these days, I’ve been spending lots of time with my local birds. I hit the local haunts trying in vain to find something interesting amidst the standard winter gulls and robins. Perhaps it’s fitting that my best bird of the last weekend of the year is American Robin, utterly mundane and yet magnificent when you have no choice but to consider it. Those of us who live in the U.S. should appreciate these incredible, adaptable lawn thrushes–and be glad they aren’t clay-colored 😉 Corey enjoyed some good home-borough birding on both Saturday and Sunday morning, with Breezy Point on Sunday being the highlight. He saw lots of good birds there but none better than a self-found Black-headed Gull, his first in Queens since March of 2011. It was easily his Best Bird of the Weekend.

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.