Based on the last two weekends, this year’s weather will probably be as wacky as last year’s. We’ve oscillated in New York from frigid to balmy back towards frostbitten in what feels like a few days. This seems to be confusing some of our reliable winter birds, not to mention our Winter Festival planners.
On Friday, I was pleased to string together a three-merganser day, nailing Hooded, Common, and Red-breasted in different spots. Corey waited until the weekend proper to pull his best bird, a Canvasback.
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.
Long-Tailed Duck at Duxbury Beach, Duxbury, MA. Scroll down to see close up.
http://massbutterflies.blogspot.com/2013/01/birding-at-duxbury-beach.html
Does Thursday count as the weekend? Because my best bird was definitely the two Sandhill Cranes I watched for two hours from 100 feet away. They hung out in Halfmoon (near Albany) NY for a few days.
Walking through the woods on the Olympic Peninsula, I came upon a flock of Golden-crowned Kinglets on the ground under a huge Douglas Fir tree. Usually they are hard to see clearly since they flit about in the branches. These Kinglets acted like birds in a fairy tale, and hopped about five feet away from me!
Best bird was the Common Goldeneye! Unfortunately no photos.
My best bird of the weekend was a Winter Wren. I led a walk on Sunday for our local bird club and one of the participants mentioned that she’d never seen one and really wanted to. We found three of them but she missed the brief look we got at the first one and another was a heard-only bird. The last one kind of followed us as we walked along a small creek and eventually gave her a good look. Showing someone a new bird is very satisfying.