Less than two weeks into the new year and I’m already used to writing 2014 instead of 2013. That must be a new record!
This weekend, I took time to appreciate the sight of ten American Robins congregating in a leafless tree. The use of the robin as a symbol for spring seems inapt considering how beautiful those rust red breasts appear in the gray of winter. Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend came down to a choice between either his first Eastern Meadowlark of the year of his first Rusty Blackbird of the year. He chose the latter mainly because he got a much better picture of it!
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.
My 14 year old son Hunter and I were wandering the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill in a warm drizzle Saturday morning with a northern cardinal and a carolina wren to our credit when we encountered a red-tailed hawk devouring an eastern gray squirrel a few feet from our path. We quietly observed it for ten minutes or so before it relocated to a nearby oak. Hunter’s thoughts and pictures can be found at http://www.hootowlkarma.blogspot.com/
Wonderful shot of a Rusty Blackbird. I birded middle elevation forests around Bajo del Toro in Costa Rica. Best for me was an Ornate Hawk Eagle flying high overhead.
Two Long-tailed Broadbills in a tree in the Crocker Ranges. A rare bed for Borneo, and a bird so good it was my best bird of the year back in 2010!
Magnificent frigatebird! More photos below:
http://newbirder.tumblr.com/post/73207167264/the-magnificent-frigatebird-we-arrived-at-one
Griffon Vulture in Germany!!
A male Mangrove Golden Whistler sitting on a nest dangling in the mangroves!
I escaped the bitter cold of the north-east and was in the Dominican Republic for a week. Best bird of the weekend was a Hispaniolan Woodpecker – like a Red-bellied Woodpecker but more vivid.
My account of this encounter is at http://www.mybirdoftheday.ca
What riveting eyes. This is the rusty blackbird? Hoopoe here, our national bird, and there seems to be a nest nearby.
A US, January, Nashville Warbler for me!
It was only just US, 20 miles from the border in San Diego.
Having only seen a few Ruddy Ducks at a time, I was astonished to see a thousand gathered together in Richardson Bay, across the bay from San Francisco. A few Western Grebes swam among them. It turns out it was the annual Richardson Bay spawning of Pacific Herring, and lots of birds like to eat the roe. The Ruddy Ducks were acting very strange, not constantly diving the way they always do, but just floating upon the water, probably so full of roe they could barely move.