Change is in the air, isn’t it? All around the world, satisfaction subsides as an inevitable restlessness sets in on a cellular level. If you’re able to resist the lure of migration, you can at least pull up a seat and watch the endless waves pursue their predestined bliss. Or join in…
Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was, what else, his first Red-headed Woodpecker in Queens! I had my share of best birds while visiting Wild Wings at Mendon Ponds Park. Choosing among the hawks, eagles, and owls at the raptor residence (alas no rehab for these irreparably injured birds of prey) and the active late winter species in the park seemed impossible, until an impressive Pileated Woodpecker put on a powerful display of excavatory activity. Woodpeckers FTW!
Who says there’s no truth in advertising?
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.
Nothing rare, but it was nice to finally see some Double-Crested Cormorants out of the water at Swan Lake, VIctoria BC today. Missed the American Bittern though…
Well, I have two goals this year: beat Corey in the year list competition and make him incredibly envious. For the latte purpose, my best birds were a pair of Long-tailed Tits apparently taking up residence in my neighbour’s yard and a Hawfinch. However, the cake goes to my first Serins of the year, a fine flock containing a bright yellow male in my front yard on Sunday, Heidelberg/Germany.
Cheers, Corey. 🙂
@Jochen: Now that’s just not fair.
FOY Pair of Eastern Meadowlarks at Knox Farm SP in East Aurora, NY. Good, safe grassland habitat since there is considerably less mowing at the park these days.
Black Vulture in upstate NY yesterday morning, just south of the Adirondacks! It was quite outside of its range, and there is, as far as I know, no reporting of one here in the past.
Also got a nice horned grebe, lots of snow geese, 4 bald eagles, black-backed gulls (definitely Great, unsure of Lesser), and a Barrow’s Goldeneye all on various sections of Lake Champlain, mostly from the Vermont side.
Singing Ruppell’s Robin-chats – not the rarest, but always skulking and an amazingly good songster. Blog at Why do birds sing in the morning?
I didn’t get a chance to go out birding anywhere this weekend but a flock of migrating Snow Geese came to me, flying over my yard Sunday morning.
I saw couple cool things on Saturday. I went birding with my professor out back of his house on the American River Parkway. His yard list currently stands at 199 species and we were really trying hard to find #200. No luck but we had 76 species and we saw a Western Gull on the river which is pretty good inland.
The best bird(s) of the weekend I could identify were a little group of Red-breasted Mergansers in one of the marinas off Lake Michigan. Nothing special, but this’ll probably be the last time I see them until autumn.
But maybe you folks can help decipher the one I couldn’t ID. Running along the same lakefront path, a small bird flew up from some shrubs near a tree and as it crossed my path, I saw a fan-shaped tail with a distinct black bar down the middle and white on either side. It was too small (sparrow-size) to be a Northern Mockingbird. Did I just nail my first-in-Chicago Black-and-White Warbler?
@Meredith, could that have been a junco? They have white on either side of their tails.
@Mike: I think that’s it. Doh! I guess I’ve seldom seen them flying before, usually just pecking on the ground. And I’m surprised they haven’t migrated yet — we’re getting temps in the 60s and 70s this week!
Mine was the flock of Ring-necked Ducks at Hempstead Lake State Park Sunday
Mine has to be a pair of Grey Hornbills that were in the garden possibly checking out this seasons currently unused Barbet nest logs…
@Jochen, you’re a bit behind in the count if you want to beat Corey, but then you might have noticed that already! 😉
@Gareth: just check the numbers again at the end of April. I have a business trip to Indonesia coming up. Also, quite possibly both western and eastern Kazakhstan in May and June. 🙂
@Jochen: Isn’t that cheating ?? ]-)
@Gareth: well, it’s not so long as it helps me beat Corey! 🙂
Look, these are business trips where I have to do bird surveys. I am not even doing them for fun. 😉
@Gareth: besides, I am quite fond of Corey, and I wish him a huuuuuuge year list full of lifers and vagrants and everything – so long as I am one species ahead.
@Jochen: I really need to go somewhere soon or my big lead is going to evaporate!
@Jochen, Corey: I’ll see if I can match your totals this year, is it from 1st Jan until 31st Dec? 😉
@Gareth: oh no, a competitor from SA! We’re positively doomed, and that’s not even kidding. You know, my boss had mentioned a project in Gabon – if you join our competition, I should really try and push that project proposal through in 2012.
@Jochen: Gabon sounds great, competition or not!! I’m on 238 by the way..:-)
@Collin Singing Ruppell’s Robin-chats – not the rarest, but always skulking and an amazingly good songster. Blog at Why do birds sing in the morning?
That is surely one amazing bird to watch and listen to.