The final weekend of October carries a particularly macabre yet playful resonance in most years. The horrors of this particular year seem to have stolen most of the joy of Halloween, if the meager stream of trick or treaters we saw this weekend were any evidence. But birds don’t seem to care about what ails us humans. They have been moving just as they tend to do this time of year, which can–as you may know–spectacular.
My daughter and I visited Owl Woods in search of winter finches but were surprised to find owls instead; obviously, the name of this legendary birding site suggests otherwise, but encountering both a Saw-whet and Barred Owl on the same autumn day was both unexpected and thrilling. Corey had an excellent weekend’s birding, adding three species to his year list for Queens, Eared Grebe, Tundra Swan, and Red-shouldered Hawk. Of the three, Eared Grebe is far-and-away the best, as it has been since 2007 since Corey last saw one in Queens. That was before he lived there and as such, Eared Grebe is 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.
Well, it wasn’t exactly on the weekend, it was on Friday, but I’m going to post it anyway. When you’re retired it gets hard to keep track of the day of the week!
There was a Red-backed Shrike in Powell River, British Columbia. A juvenile bird, probably a wrong-way migrant as the species winters in Africa. We made a two-day trip (two ferry rides each way) to find it. It was a first record for Canada, and a second record for North America. And as far as I know the group that was there with us were the last ones to see the bird before it disappeared.
A lot of people saw the bird, but there would have been a much bigger crowd if Canada’s border wasn’t closed to Americans.
Acorn Woodpecker for me, hands down. They are only seen reglarly in a very tiny area of SW WA in Klickitat County, and even there are tough sometimes. I lucked out with three at a granary tree on a sunny day with little traffic on Sunday.
Great Blue Turaco