When asking “Where Are You Birding This Weekend?” on Friday, I botched my comment about Daylight Savings Time. The insightful point I meant to make is that springing forward means losing an hour of sleep, not an hour of birding. Apparently, I needed the sleep more than the time outside… how about you?
The Dark-eyed Juncos around here are getting pretty feisty, which I will take as a very, very, very early sign of spring; hard to get to excited with all this snow still on the ground. Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was one of three great goose species he saw on Saturday during a day-long expedition in eastern Long Island. Of the three, he decided on Pink-footed Goose over Ross’s Goose or the four Greater White-fronted Geese because, well, Pink-footed Goose is just plain awesome.
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.
A fine male Smew migrating low over the Black Forest’s highest mountain top on Sunday is my BBotW. This observation ranks high on my list of “most unexpected encounters ever”. It is good to know that after 35 years of birding, an observation can still render me completely stunned and speechless.
My best was watching pairs of Trumpeter Swans in courtship dances. Nice to watch as they bobbed up and down with wings half outstretched. They performed standing on ice, all bodies of water around Lake Ontario are frozen. The performances abruptly stopped when three coyotes bounded out onto the ice and threatened to encircle the swans and other waterfowl, instead they kept on running; who knows where or why. You’ll find photos and the whole story on my blog by clicking on my name above.
My best here on the Olympic Peninsula were five Black Oystercatchers foraging for limpets along the beach at low tide… until an off-leash dog frightened them away.
La Sagra’s Flycatcher in Miami. Stunned that thing hung around long enough for me to get there and see it (approximately four months?).
This weekend (March 9, 2014) saw and heard Common Yellowthroat (wichy-wichy-wichy) and heard (very close) Virginia Rail ( kick-kick-kidick-kidick). At Coyote Hills Regional Park, Fremont, Alameda County, California.
Eagerly awaiting Sibley Guide release tomorrow. Thanks for the early review last week!
Best of Boids!
My lifer White-winged Scoters (M&F) hanging out with RB and Common Mergs in the Chicago River’s North Channel, conveniently just blocks away from the Birding America X conference on Saturday (more to come on that). Now I’ve got all three North American scoters ticked!
Herring Gull. That’s right – Herring Gull. Living in a basically waterless county in Indiana I was surprised to find 2 at the same local pond that brought the Long-tailed Duck last weekend. And after living here a year I never suspected that Herring Gull would turn out to be county bird #200.
http://bushwhackingbirder.com/general/johnson-county-200/
A Harris’s Sparrow for me. 3 sightings in one day. What have I been looking at until now?
Three Red-Necked Grebes at the water treatment plant in Fort Wayne, IN!